Blair
by tell-them-stories
Summary: Change one detail and an entire story, an entire world, is affected. Imagine this: on January 9th, 1960, Eileen Snape did not give birth to a boy. She had a girl.
1. Chapter 1

As the summary says, this story is an exploration of the idea of a female character in the place of Severus Snape. I named her Blair, which is a Scottish name meaning _battlefield_, a name I though fitting for a person as internally distraught and morally torn as this character is. Everything outside of Snape will be canon; except for the relationship between Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks, which will be cut out for reasons I'm sure you can guess. It will be a story in five separate books, representing the five major stages of Blair Snape's life.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J K Rowling. This is my way of worshiping her, by toying with her awesome characters.

_**Blair**_

_January 9__th__, 1960_

The pain—it was unlike anything she'd ever experienced. Like her entire being, not just her body, but her very _soul_, was being torn in half, slowly and painfully, fracturing more and more with each passing second. Eileen had been told, yes, and she'd prepared as best she could, but there were no words, no exercises, and no bloody _books_ that could equip a woman for childbirth. There was no way anyone could accurately describe the _sheer agony—_

"Push!"

There was this nurse at the end of her bed, with platinum blonde hair that shown painfully in the fluorescent light and a voice highly reminiscent of nails on a chalk board or the like, repeating that word, _push_, over and over and over in that high pitched tone, this almost panicked mantra that had begun the moment that labor had started and had yet to stop, or even slow. Merlin, did the woman think she was stupid? Of course she knew she had to bloody _push!_

Eileen could feel it now, this tearing between her legs, this presence there, both physical and magical, and she threw back her head on the pillows, biting her chapped lips as hard as she could, gnawing at them, forcing herself not to scream. The noise was pressing against her teeth, filling up the back of her throat, and she could feel bile rising rapidly to join it. She tangled her fingers in the stark white sheets and exhaled loudly through her nose.

"_PUSH!"_

She wanted her wand, if only to put some sort of silencing charm on the muggle nurse. The dull pain between her eyes, so insignificant compared to what was happening below her waist, told her she had quite the migraine coming on that had nothing to do with the fact that she about was ten seconds away from giving birth to her first child and Eileen, for what it was worth, just wanted a bit of quiet when it actually happened.

"Oh God! It's coming!"

There was crying now, but Eileen could tell both by the timbre of the voice and the blood running down her chin that it wasn't her own. The nurse was fumbling, there was a doctor nearby, though where she was too exhausted to tell, and the pain was lessening, descending slowly but surely from the splitting, consuming agony she'd been in moments ago. The tiny voice was screaming for all it was worth and another nurse, a brunette with a much kinder, rounder face, was cooing softly, telling the baby that, "Everything was alright."

Was it? Eileen was too spent to really tell.

"It's a girl," the doctor said softly, kindly, and she looked again towards the brunette nurse. Her vision was still blurred, but she could see a small pink mass in the slight woman's arms. Someone was pushing her hair off of her face, someone else was pulling her gown down, and Eileen blinked rapidly, forcing her eyes to see.

"Bring her here," her voice was hoarse and muffled by the way the blonde was now wiping the blood gently from her chin, aggravating the holes she'd left in her bottom lip slightly. The brunette smiled and Eileen's vision sharpened slightly as she began to approach and leaned forward to place the baby in her shaking arms.

_She's smaller than I thought she'd be_, was the first thought in Eileen's head as she surveyed the small, pink body, the tiny, surprisingly slender legs, the miniscule fingers that closed and opened and closed again. There were fine, damp black hairs on her soft head, rose lips, blushing cheeks and—

"Mr. Snape," someone was saying, "congratulations. You have a daughter."

_She's beautiful._

Tobias was approaching, hovering awkwardly off to one side with his hands buried in his jeans pockets, his shoulders hunched and his dark hair hiding his eyes. Eileen could tell he was staring though, and waiting. She knew he thought their child, their _witch_ child, would start putting on displays of uncontrolled magic the moment she came into the world and was probably trying hard not to panic and running through a hundred different excuses he could give for anything that may or may not happen. Eileen knew better, it would be a couple of months before the baby in her arms could so much as activate her magic, let alone use it, but she'd never bothered to set her husband straight and wasn't about to at the moment, what with all of his fellow _muggles _in the room. Instead she busied herself with gently brushing the sparse hairs on her daughters head and adjusting the blanket the brunette had wrapped haphazardly around her.

"She doesn't look like either of us," Tobias commented after a moment, his voice low and hardly overjoyed. Eileen wasn't surprised, his tolerance towards magic was limited and he hadn't been too happy when she'd explained to him that her pregnancy would lead to a little witch. He'd been growing more and more distant lately and she was surprised he'd even come to the hospital with her at all, let alone was in the actual room with their daughter.

"No," Eileen replied softly, running her fingers over the round, rosy cheeks. The baby cracked open one eye and Eileen swallowed, "Wait," she felt rather than saw Tobias freeze; he was standing closer than originally thought, "She has your eyes," she informed him as one, tiny black eye stared tiredly up at her.

Tobias made a strange noise, something like a mix between a chuckle and a groan, but before he could actually reply, the brunette approached, smiling and gazing at the little girl.

"Do you have a name?" she asked softly, reaching out to push the blanket off of the baby's left cheek with one, careful finger and leaning forward to properly smile at her. Eileen paused, glancing at Tobias in question, but her husband merely stared, a clear sign that he did not have an opinion on the matter. She took a deep breath, looking down at her daughter, and paused, searching for a proper answer. She didn't want to leave the matter hanging; she hated the idea of bringing her baby home without a name.

"Blair," she said finally, looking again at Tobias, who merely nodded once, shortly and turned away towards the doctor and nurse who were marking up the chart at the foot of the bed. Eileen turned back to the brunette, "Blair," she repeated firmly. The child in her arms shifted and a tiny hand pressed up against her heart with a strange sort of insistence.

Eileen pressed the baby—_Blair_—into her chest and dissolved into tears.

--

It was a strange adjustment, for both of them.

Tobias, Eileen noticed immediately, was reluctant to touch Blair, let alone hold her. She knew why, of course he was growing more and more paranoid of the magic, after all, even Eileen was getting surprised at how—_quiet_ the little girl was being. It'd been a month and surely, _surely_, if she was anything like the rest of her magical family, if she was the Prince her mother suspected she was, she'd start giving off signs.

One day, in the middle of a diaper change, Tobias entered the nursery to hover awkwardly in the corner beside the changing table, his hands buried in his pockets and his dark eyes fixed on the little girl as she simply lay there, waiting for Eileen to finish.

"Is she even awake?" Tobias asked after a long moment, as Eileen finished taping the diaper in place and lifted Blair into a sitting position. The child blinked up at her, almost _lazily_, and let herself get maneuvered without any sort of movement in response.

"Of course," she picked the baby up and turned away from the table, starting towards the nursery door, "She's a mellow baby," she continued, "Don't complain."

Tobias blanched, "Believe me, I'm not," he grumbled as he followed her out the door and into the hallway, sounding very much like a toddler himself.

Eileen was halfway to the stairs when she realized she had forgotten Blair's bottle on the window sill of the nursery. She cursed softly and turned, nearly running into Tobias's chest as she did, but stopped dead as he caught her upper arms, keeping her upright, her eyes locked on the sight behind him, stunned despite the fact that she'd expected it and soon.

Hovering at her eye level, about two feet behind her husband, was the bottle.

Tobias caught her look and turned, stepping back when he caught sight of the bottle, his dark eyes widening. Eileen watched him carefully as the formula drifted closer and then slowly, into her outstretched hand, frowning when he almost flinched backwards. Blair was quiet against her shoulder, completely still and completely unaware that she'd brought the bottle with her.

Eileen grinned.

"That's my girl," she cooed softly, ignoring the still-stunned look on Tobias's face. Blair whined a little in response.

--

Tobias wasn't sure, but he was beginning to get the impression that his daughter knew way more than she let on.

She was six and a half months now, it was late June, and she was just sitting there. Just _sitting there_ in the grass while he was supposed to be watching her and making sure that she didn't, as Eileen put it, "roll off somewhere" and staring at this one blade of grass with this particular intensity.

"Blair," he said pointedly after a long moment of stillness, "What is it about that grass that's so interesting?"

Alert black eyes flicked to him, before turning slowly back to that blade of grass. If Tobias hadn't known better, he'd say the little girl was frowning, maybe even scowling as she stared. His nerves got the better of him then, as her displays of magical ability, while only few and far between, had been growing in intensity, from a bowl of pancake batter exploding all over the kitchen, to every light bulb in the living room going out in the middle of a particularly nasty tantrum over, strangely enough, a book that Blair had been, apparently, staring at and wanted to complete her survey of. He knew it was rather ridiculous, as he edged backwards a few inches; she was six months old, for god's sake, but the girl was also a witch and, for all he knew, she wanted that grass to burst into flame.

They sat like that for about five minutes, Blair staring at the grass, Tobias staring at her, before the back screen door was pushed open and Eileen was approaching, holding a picnic basket and smiling knowingly.

"Blair," she scolded, sitting down beside her husband and drawing Blair's eyes away from her grass once again, "You're scaring your father."

Blair looked at her, then at the picnic basket, and crawled towards her parents, grass forgotten.

Tobias tried not to look too relieved.

--

A/N: I know it's starting slowly, but I promise, within a few chapters, Lily will be around and we'll be heading off to Hogwarts. I know I made Blair seem like a strange child and Tobias less than abusive or whatever, but he's going to start withdrawing as Blair keeps growing and Blair will start coming out of her shell and reacting to her father.

Also, I apologize for the birth scene. It was necessary.

So please review, if you're interested in seeing this continue. Thanks.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own.

_January to March, 1963_

Tobias's mother, Clarice, was a very proud woman. And, for someone who was pushing sixty, she looked excellent, with her straight black hair pulled back into a severe bun, her sharp black eyes (a Snape family trait, it seemed) hidden behind tasteful, thin spectacles, and dressed in a pair of casual tan slacks and a white blouse. She often frowned, but then again so did her son and it was really a look that suited the proud, Snape countenance. They looked a lot alike, the two of them, with their slightly prominent noses, their thick, black hair and eyebrows, and their sallow complexions. Not lookers necessarily, but then again Eileen wasn't exactly gorgeous herself, with her stringy brown hair and her pathetic excuse for cheekbones.

Blair, however, was an entirely different story and Clarice, who visited the family of three for the first time shortly after Blair's third birthday, leapt on the fact immediately.

"She's beautiful," she said, almost coldly as she surveyed the little girl, who had surrounded herself with blocks and was currently building what appeared to be a fortress for her favorite stuffed animal: a rather raggedy, gray wolf that had been dragged through the mud more than once but Blair refused to have washed.

Eileen, who had been sipping tea, lowered her cup onto her saucer and stared at her daughter.

Part of her wanted to disagree with Clarice, she didn't think the girl beautiful at all, quite the contrary, the big, alert black eyes, set deep into that abnormally pale face, were rather unsettling and her body was too thin for a toddler, despite the food Eileen constantly crammed into it. Beautiful wasn't the word, though she certainly wasn't ugly. Unique was more like it, as she couldn't remember seeing any child that even remotely resembled her little girl before. And children, though they resembled their parents, did seem to have common traits.

She cleared her throat, "She certainly doesn't take after Tobias or I," was all the response she offered, as grandmother's tended to get defensive about her grandchildren and Eileen knew Clarice and her temper too well to push her.

Clarice hummed softly in response, "No. Thank god. You seem to have produced the perfect combination with this one."

Eileen flinched at the less than subtle jab at her looks, but kept her lips firmly closed. Blair paused in her building to glance at her, the two blocks she held in each of her hands balancing precariously on her palms, and frowned slightly, as if she too had heard the comment and understood the insult perfectly. It was strange, the amount of awareness her daughter displayed on occasion. If Eileen hadn't known any better, and more often than not she didn't, she'd swear Blair understood every single adult conversation that was had in her presence.

She was suddenly glad Tobias waited until they put her to bed before starting an argument, especially since it seemed to be happening more and more often and for less and less logical reasons. Somehow, the idea of her daughter knowing that she and her husband were fighting, even about things as mundane as the state of the front lawn and the trash bins, didn't sit right with her at all.

Speaking of which—

Tobias entered the house then, fresh off from his work at the textile factory and frowning for all he was worth. He glanced once at his wife, then at his mother, and then finally settled his gaze on his daughter, who was currently making the wolf climb up what appeared to be a very precariously built staircase.

Actually, the fortress she had built reminded Eileen powerfully of Hogwarts—

"Tobias, dear!" Clarice was already on her feet and fretting over the smudges and grease that littered Tobias's shirt and face, "You're a mess! How are we supposed to go out to dinner with you looking like this? Go get cleaned up now!"

Tobias, strangely, shot Eileen a glare; it was almost as if he blamed _her_ for his own mother's lecture and the cesspool that was his job. She frowned; it wasn't as if she didn't work, she _did_, running a small potions business out of their home, but there weren't as many wizards in Spinner's End as there were as in say, London, so business was limited even on a good day. But now her husband was practically stomping up the stairs and, considering their current company, she couldn't exactly say something to him without raising awkward questions between herself and her muggle mother in law.

But still. His behavior had been growing fouler by the day and she was getting very tired of it, very fast.

--

Blair seemed strangely depressed in March.

If a toddler could actually be depressed, that is. After all, her life experience was minimal, at best, and it wasn't as if she was _neglected_ or anything. Eileen practically smothered the girl with affection nowadays, what with her husband's slow and steady withdrawal from them both, to make up for it to both Blair and herself. Though she supposed excess love from a mother did not fix a lack of love from a father and it was quite possible that Tobias was the cause of whatever was clearly bothering Blair.

One day, in the middle of the month, Eileen got tired of watching her daughter mope around, playing less and staring into space more, and decided enough was enough.

She dressed Blair in a simple black skirt, a plain white shirt, and a blue spring jacket. Blair let it happen, simply watching her mother, appearing almost tired while Eileen practically shoved her arms into sleeves.

"Where are we going, Mum?" she asked lowly and despite how childish her voice still was, Eileen felt as though she was speaking to an adult.

"You need to get out of the house for a bit," Eileen adjusted the buttons on Blair's jacket one more time before pushing herself from her crouch and reaching for her own, long black jacket that hung on the hangers beside them, "I'm taking you to Diagon Alley."

A look of awe spread quickly over Blair's face and her large eyes widened impossibly, shining with bizarre anticipation and delight, "Really?" she asked breathlessly, sounding for once like the child she was. For some reason, both the look and tone seemed out of place to Eileen. She had to force the smile onto her face.

"Really," she said, offering her hand. A smaller one pushed into it and squeezed.

--

Diagon Alley wasn't crowded, as it was the middle of the week and barely noon, so most were at work and the like. Eileen was almost glad for it, because though she had told her daughter enough stories to give her the general idea, this was the first time she had actually brought Blair into the epicenter of the British wizarding community. Wide black eyes darted from store front to store front, from cauldron pile to smoking box of fire newt eyes. It was strange, seeing Blair in such a state of absolute awe, but at the same time, it was comforting. Because despite her strange silences and her alert gazes and her slow and steady withdrawal, it seemed Blair was a child yet.

This point was driven home when she rushed forward, tugging her hand from her mother's, and approached a spectacular display of golden scales in the front window of Eileen's apothecary of choice, her mouth forming a tiny 'o' as she clutched the edge of the window sill and propelled herself upwards on her tip toes to get a better view.

"They're so_ pretty_," she said breathlessly when Eileen approached to stand behind her, "Mum, can I get some?"

Big black eyes blinked innocently up at her and the urge to purchase the scales, despite how outrageously expensive they would undoubtedly be, rose violently in Eileen. She bit her lip and glanced towards them once again, taking in the multiple special features, the plates designated for measuring certain types of ingredients, such as eyes or roots, and the complicated numeric systems running along the bottom.

But, of course, she had her own set of decent scales at home and, if Blair wanted to learn to brew, they would be more than adequate. She frowned at her own reflection, debating for a moment if it was worth it to keep that expression of complete and utter childlike wonder on her daughter's face, when another figure appeared in the window's reflection behind her. A horribly familiar figure. A platinum blonde figure.

Her stomach clenched and she turned, though it was a slow movement, because she wasn't about to show fear to a man such as Abraxas Malfoy.

"Hello, Eileen," he said softly, catching her eyes with his own hard, gray stare and smiling coldly. Eileen swallowed hard and resisted the need to step back, lest she find herself pressed against the glass behind her. That was the last thing she needed right now, it was one thing to be _talking_ to Abraxas, it was entirely another to be _cornered_ by him.

"Hello," she said shortly and her fingers longed to lace themselves in Blair's hair. A quick glance showed that her daughter had turned as well and was gazing up at Abraxas with a surprisingly _open_ expression. A feeling of dread swept over Eileen; the absolute _last_ thing she wanted was for a _Malfoy_ to be the first wizard Blair became acquainted with.

Abraxas, having noticed her glance, looked long and hard at Blair before returning his gaze to Eileen, his eyes glittering with something very similar to malice.

"How have you been?" he asked and, had she not known so much better, she would have said he sounded genuine, "The last time I saw you was at Hogwarts. Your graduation, I believe?"

She nodded curtly. Abraxas, despite being two years ahead of her at school, had always had a habit of skulking around the girls in her year, especially Eileen herself and Albertine Carrows, whom, she had heard, he had married shortly after their graduation. It was more of that same Slytherin, pure-blood mania, the same that had driven her out of her own home at the tender age of nineteen. Even at school, it had been clear that pure-bloods were to date pure-bloods and that was the end of the rather ridiculous discussion. Of course, that wasn't to say she hadn't bought into it, once upon a time and all that.

And if the smirk on Abraxas's face was any indication, he hadn't forgotten it either.

"Your daughter?" he asked silkily, eyeing Blair even as she so obviously sized him up in turn. The sudden, overwhelming desire to whip out her wand and hex him into oblivion seized Eileen then, making it hard to see straight. It was all she could do to keep her jaw clenched shut, she was sure she'd either insult him or threatenhim if she let herself talk, so she simply nodded again, balling her hands into fists at her sides.

Abraxas cocked his head, "It's a pity that she's a half-breed," Blair's eyebrows furrowed at the term, but she, thankfully, kept her mouth shut, "She's going to grow up prettily. Wouldn't you say, Lucius?"

It was then, when the man actually acknowledged him, that Eileen first noticed the boy standing beside him. Her first thought was not that this had to be Abraxas's son, but that it was literally a clone. Though he was a bit younger than his father had been when she'd first met him, it was almost as if Eileen was staring down the thirteen year old Abraxas on the Hogwarts Express again. There were the same cold, gray eyes, the same disgustingly blonde hair, and the same superior expression. Lucius Malfoy looked to be about nine and he was already dressed in the same black and silver aristocratic robes that his father wore beside him.

Eileen looked between Lucius and Abraxas and found herself wanting to run. Fast. Far. Away.

"So, Eileen, tell me," Abraxas either didn't notice the state of fear and rage Eileen had fallen into or had chosen to ignore it, "does she take after her mother?"

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" slipped from her lips before she could stop it, and in a rather aggressive way to boot. Abraxas raised a slender eyebrow, but his smirk was still in place and, to her disbelief, was actually _growing_ with her display of temper.

"Calm yourself," he said softly, mockingly, "I merely meant to ask whether she would be in Slytherin or not?"

Eileen blinked.

The truth was she'd never even thought about it. Blair was so _young_, after all, and while there was no doubt she would be going to Hogwarts, Eileen had never even considered the Sorting. She looked down at her daughter, who was gazing furtively between herself and the Malfoys, and found herself frowning.

She wanted to deny it; she wanted to tell Abraxas that he was a fool and that he should leave. That her little girl hadn't been born a Prince, wouldn't be raised a Prince, and would not adhere to the same pure-blood mania that he and her own parents had. She wanted to tell him that her daughter was _smart _like a Ravenclaw, _brave _like a Gryffindor. But the fact was that she had no doubt.

Blair was a born Slytherin.

Abraxas smiled and looked down at Lucius.

"It would appear that Miss—what was the name of the muggle you married, Eileen?" his eyes glittered maliciously, "Ah," he continued, without waiting for a response, not that she would have given one anyway, "Miss _Snape_ will be joining you in your house."

Eileen felt rather ill and Lucius's expression suddenly mirrored his father's.

"I look forward to it," the boy said softly and all Eileen heard was _menace_.

Blair stared up at them both with mildly confused, yet steady big black eyes.

Eileen couldn't take it anymore. She grabbed that tiny hand again and somehow, it seemed important that she grip it firmly. She needed to keep her daughter as _close_ as possible for as_ long_ as possible.

"It was very good to see you again, Eileen," Abraxas called mockingly at her retreating back as she rushed Blair into the apothecary and away from _them._

--

Inevitably, the question came. What was surprising to Eileen was that Blair waited two days to ask it. It was as though she knew her mother needed time to cool off after the very obviously tense confrontation.

"Mum," she said quietly as Eileen placed a plate of eggs and toast in front of her, "What is a half-breed?"

Despite the fact that she had been expecting it, the question still froze Eileen in her tracks. She swallowed hard, staring at the red, flowered wall paper on the kitchen walls rather than at the girl beside her.

"Mum," Blair prompted again after several moments. Eileen took a deep breath.

"There are some witches and wizards," she said slowly, trying as hard as she could to look into Blair's eyes but somehow only managing to stare at her hairline, "who believe that witches and wizards should only marry other witches and wizards. They believe in the pure-blood, in people who come from entirely magical families."

Blair stared up at her forlornly, "And I'm not a pure-blood because Dad's a muggle."

It was more of a statement than a question, but Eileen nodded anyways.

"You're a half-blood," she explained, lacing her fingers into the thick black hair on her daughter's head and trying not to hold too tightly, "There's nothing wrong with that."

The little girl frowned at her eggs for a long moment and Eileen held her breath.

"Alright," Blair murmured after a long moment and tucked into her breakfast.

And through her relief, Eileen still couldn't shake the worry. Because even though she was here now and still listened to what her mother had to say—

Hogwarts, and the Slytherin Common Room, would undoubtedly change the equation.

--

A/N: I know, Blair's kinda really weird, but the way I see it, the "Snape" character had some issues as a kid. So yeah, that's my explanation for that.

As for Tobias, he's starting to be a dick. Because he is one. And stuff.

And Abraxas—I figure Lucius had to get all of his delicious evilness from someone, right?

Please, please review. My ego is small and needs to be fed.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Don't own.

Some of the dialogue here is taken from Deathly Hallows. You know, Snape's memories and all that.

_May, 1965_

Blair wasn't the type for friends.

That wasn't to say that she didn't _want_ friends, necessarily—quite the contrary, had she lived near other young witches and wizards, she would have strived for it. She wasn't very sociable, but playing by one's self got old after the first few years and, considering her one playmate was the same, nameless ragged wolf she'd been gifted by her mother at the tender age of one, she was rather bored with her current existence.

She hadn't been aware of it so much before that first trip to Diagon Alley. Meeting Lucius, despite the fact that he'd been older and that her mother had obviously harbored great dislike towards his father, had been interesting. The muggle children in her neighborhood—they didn't like her. It was almost as if they could sense that she was different, they could tell that she had magic. With Lucius it hadn't been like that, he hadn't looked at her as if she were some sort of freak and he'd actually smiled a few times. But her mother and Lucius's father obviously weren't very fond of each other and Blair knew better than to ask if she could see the boy again.

Still, it didn't mean she was happy about it. After all, every child needed friends growing up. At least, that's what her grandmother Clarice had said the last time she'd visited. "Every little girl needs other little girls to play with. It's just a fact."

Eileen had made the strangest face then, something that looked like it was torn between agreement and reluctance. Blair had known better than to ask about that too. Her mother was an exceedingly stubborn woman and seemed determined to keep the details of whatever it was the kept her from introducing Blair to other young witches and wizards a secret. Besides, the more she asked about the wizarding world, the more she found her mother made excuses not to bring her into Diagon Alley. She'd learned to keep her mouth shut in exchange for the occasional trip into the heart of wizarding Britain.

But then again, Diagon Alley could only do so much for a lonely child.

--

She took to wandering.

Spinner's End was a relatively small street, but it gave way to a spectacular park at the end that left the village. Blair had grown rather fond of it and, on the days when her mother was busy helping out potions customers and she was left to entertaining herself out in the backyard of their small home, she'd taken to leaving the property and exploring further and further into the trees. Eileen knew she was smart enough to take care of herself and they both knew there were very few animals, or _muggles_ for that matter, who could pose a proper threat to her with her growing understanding of her magic (another thing that clearly bothered her mother, so she didn't broadcast it). It was this silent understanding they had. Eileen would work and rather than coop her daughter up, she'd let her run free.

Blair was rather fond of the small stream that she'd discovered on her third venturing into the woods. There was something tranquil, she supposed, about the way the water fell over the rocks and the way small fish glittered in the sunlight. She liked sitting beside it, perhaps dipping her feet into it if it were especially warm, as it had been getting as of late. And it took her mind off the arguments she had been hearing between her parents after her mother put her to bed each night, growing more and more frequent and less and less reasonable as time went on. She wasn't quite sure what was causing it; after all, her father _appeared_ perfectly civil whenever Blair was around, but at the same time, there was the fact that he seemed rather afraid of touching her. That was another strange thing; it wasn't as if she'd electrocute him or anything. But then, he couldn't know that, could he? And he did get strangely tense whenever she accidently levitated something in front of him.

She frowned. Perhaps it all, the lack of touching, the arguments between her mum and dad, was caused by magic. Or rather, a _fear _of it.

It was late morning when she reached the stream that particular day and she immediately took her trainers off, intent on sticking her feet in the water and _not_ thinking. She wondered, vaguely, if _other_ five year olds, muggle or witches, had as many problems as she did. Played politics with her parents as much as she did. If the way they behaved in the local playground was any indication, she doubted it.

The water was cool, but not unpleasantly so as she plunged her feet in toes first and plopped down on the grassy bank. A stray bit of algae brushed her ankle and she twitched it absently, leaning backwards and resting her forearms on the ground, tilting her head to stare at the sky.

"_Lily_, mum told us not to go too far!"

Blair jerked forward at the sound of the shrill, female voice. It was close, _very_ close, but she couldn't see anyone nearby. She twisted, determinedly keeping her feet in the stream as she did, but she couldn't see the girl anywhere.

"_Relax_," a younger sounding voice responded, "it's fine. And we won't get caught if you don't say anything."

A redheaded girl appeared suddenly from behind a particularly thick batch of trees on the other side of the stream and Blair had the overpowering impression that she was the second speaker. She approached the stream immediately and was halfway through taking off her own shoes when she finally noticed Blair.

Round green eyes blinked rapidly as she froze in a rather comical pose, with one leg bent upwards at an awkward angle as both her hands tugged at her shoe. Blair would have laughed, but she wasn't sure if the girl would think her rude for doing so, so she clamped her mouth shut before even the barest hint of a chuckle could escape and stared back in what she hoped was a non-threatening way. She had been feeling rather lonely lately. Perhaps this girl would play with her a bit, if she played things right.

Another girl appeared as Blair and the redhead stared at each other, a rather sour looking blonde who appeared to be the older sister. The redhead was Blair's age, while the other looked to be about two years older and, as she stood there in her shorts and t shirt and with her purse slung over her shoulder, it was obvious she was trying to be older than she actually was.

"Who're you?" the blonde snapped, immediately catching sight of Blair around her sister's bizarre stance. She swallowed hard, willing herself not to mess this perfectly good opportunity to spend some time with kids her age and perhaps even make some friends.

"Blair," her voice sounded strangely high, nervous. It was odd. The blonde stared coldly.

"Right. Well, we must be going. Come, Lily."

Blair's stomach began to plummet, but the redhead, _Lily_, had begun to move again and had tugged off her left shoe and was starting in on the right one.

"Come _on_, Petunia, it's _so_ hot, let's just dip our feet in. Is the water nice, Blair?" she smiled across the stream and Blair blinked in confusion.

"Er. Yes?"

"_Lily!_" Petunia shot Blair this scandalized look for even daring to suggest that it was okay for Lily to put her feet in the water, "Stop it!"

It was too late, however, and Lily was seated on a round, sun dried rock and dipping her feet into the stream. Petunia scowled deeply at her little sister's back as she kicked up a bit of water, getting some droplets on the bottom of her blue skirt.

"So where do you live?" Lily asked lightly, looking up at Blair and grinning. Petunia huffed and folded her arms.

"Spinner's End," Blair was glad her voice was back to normal, but she still felt awkward. Lily seemed to be genuinely enjoying talking to her, something she'd never experienced before from the muggle children in the area.

"We live near there! Right, Tuney?"

The blonde girl simply glared at the back of Lily's head and didn't respond. Lily, however, didn't seem to care.

"I love these woods. They're so peaceful," she pushed her red hair out of her face and kicked a bit of water towards Blair, "So what're you doing out here?"

Blair shrugged, "I like it here."

There was a pause and she had to admit she was surprised at how comfortable it was. Even Petunia, who seemed to have given up on getting Lily back to their house any time soon, had knelt down in the grass and was fiddling with a blade she had pulled out of the ground absently and staring off into space. Lily was looking along the banks for something, though Blair wasn't sure what and wasn't sure if it was alright for her to ask and offer her help yet. After a moment, as she watched and contemplated lending a hand, Lily leaned forward and reached around a rock to pluck a single white daisy out of the grass.

Blair watched her lift it, sniff it and then, to her complete and utter disbelief, the petals closed.

Petunia wasn't looking, but Blair couldn't make herself look away, her eyes darting between Lily's face, which seemed remarkably calm as the petals _opened up again_, and the moving flower. It was a bizarre sort of thing and reminded Blair powerfully of this plant she had seen the last time her mother had taken her to Diagon Alley, which had somewhat resembled a Venus Fly Trap but opened and closed at random. The petals were doing a sort of dance now, moving one by one, down and up and down and up in a strange sort of rhythm. And Lily was smiling in such a serene way—

"_Lily, stop it!_"

Blair jumped, as though jerked out of a trance, and glanced at Petunia to find an expression of complete and utter horror on her face.

"Why, Tuney?" Lily looked up at Blair and smiled, such a stark contrast to the look her older sister was giving her, which was a mixture of anger and dread, "It's not hurting anyone. Right, Blair?"

"Right," she whispered, her mind working furiously. Lily obviously knew what she was doing; she was _controlling_ the flower, making it move, which could only mean—

"This isn't our _backyard_, Lily," Petunia hissed venomously, "You can't just do that whenever you want! You're scaring Blair!"

"I just said it wasn't hurting anyone," Blair shot back, keeping her eyes locked on the flower, watching as it continued its strange dance and as Lily's green eyes sparkled. This silence was tenser than the last and Petunia looked torn between crying and shouting. Blair wasn't quite sure what she felt, as her mother had explicitly told her that there were no wizarding children in the area and she had been quite sure that Lily was a muggle when she'd wandered into the clearing. Was it possible that she was a muggle _and_ a witch?

She frowned.

"How do you do that?" Petunia asked stiffly after several moments, watching her sister as well.

"Isn't it obvious?" slipped from Blair's mouth before she could stop it.

Both girls looked at her.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked and the flower abruptly stopped its dance, lying idle against her palm. Blair swallowed hard.

"I mean—well, I _think_," she paused and looked down at her feet, watching as the slow current distorted them weirdly, "You're a witch."

Petunia's mouth fell open in horror. Lily's hand and smile dropped.

"That's not a very nice thing to call someone," she said softly, sounding more than a little hurt. Blair, remembering abruptly what her mother had told her once about the muggle perception of witches and wizards, looked up and shook her head vigorously.

"No, no, that's not a bad thing," she leaned forward, "I'm a witch too."

Lily's green eyes grew impossibly round, "You _are_?" She suddenly seemed so much younger than she had a moment ago. Blair smiled weakly.

"Yeah, my Mum and I both are."

Lily opened her mouth to ask something, but Petunia cut her off in a harsh tone, "Prove it."

Blair blinked and looked up at her, "What?"

"Prove that you're a witch."

There was an awkward pause. Blair wasn't quite sure of what to do, she'd never been asked to _prove_ what she was and Eileen had told her time and time again to _never_ do magic in front of muggles. But then again, Lily most certainly was _not_ a muggle and Petunia had clearly seen her do magic before so—

What could it hurt?

Blair focused on a rock sitting in the grass between the two sisters, willing it to leave the ground. There was a split second's pause and then Petunia shrieked, falling backwards into a nearby tree trunk in her haste to get away as the rock floated lazily upwards and then, about a foot off the ground, turned over. Lily let out a delighted laugh.

"You are! You are a witch! And," her brow furrowed and she looked at Blair, "And so am I."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Petunia said shrilly from the tree, still staring at the rock with an expression of abject terror, "No one else in our family is!"

Lily shot a questioning look at Blair, who shrugged. Apparently it didn't matter that she'd come from an all muggle family, she clearly had magic and knew how to use it, "It doesn't matter. She's still a witch," she said firmly, confidently.

Lily grinned.

--

Eileen wasn't sure what it was, but her daughter seemed strangely cheerful that evening at dinner.

"How was your day, Blair?" she asked as she passed Tobias the beans, ignoring how he flinched. He hated how independent their little girl was; though she was quite sure it wasn't for the normal, over-protective father reasons.

Blair chewed thoughtfully on her chicken, "I went for a walk in the woods."

The woods. She'd certainly been spending a lot of time there lately. Eileen wasn't quite sure how she felt about that. There was an awkward pause during which both Blair and Tobias reached for the salt and Tobias jerked back as if burned when their hands brushed. Eileen grimaced.

"Mum," Blair said suddenly, staring quite pointedly at her father, who rather tactlessly avoided her gaze, "is it possible to be a muggle and a witch at the same time?"

Tobias shot Blair a look of complete and utter disbelief. Eileen was right there with him.

"What, dear?" she asked slowly. Blair turned those black eyes on her.

"I met these two girls today. One was definitely a witch, but her sister was a muggle."

Eileen lowered her fork, which had been halfway to her mouth and dripping gravy, slowly, "Yes," she said carefully and Tobias's head turned in her direction so quickly his neck cracked, "It's possible. Witches and wizards like that are called muggle-borns."

"You're _kidding_," Tobias snorted in a rather unflattering way. Eileen shot him a look she knew full well was dark.

"No," she said flatly, "Muggle-borns are quite common actually. It seems you aren't the only young witch in the neighborhood after all, Blair."

A tiny smile spread across Blair's lips.

"Good," she said happily, "I liked her."

--

A/N: Just realized I had anonymous reviews disabled on this account. Fixed it. So hopefully I'll get more now. (Hint, hint)

I changed the Lily-Snape meeting. For obvious reasons. Because Blair's different from Severus. And she's a girl, so she wouldn't be creeping on other girls. So yeah. But still, borrowed some dialogue from JKR. I don't own that btws. So, can I has reviews plz? Thanks.


	4. Chapter 4

Don't own.

Thanks for the reviews!

_December, 1967_

"So we're going to get letters?"

Lily was sitting on her bed, leaning forward and staring at Blair with huge, delighted green eyes. Blair nodded solemnly.

"Yes, the year we turn eleven, my Mum said. And then we have to go to Diagon Alley and get all of our supplies."

The redhead let out her breath in a rush, "And then we go to Hogwarts. Did she tell you what it was like?"

Blair hesitated a moment. Yes, her mother had told her, more or less, what the famous wizarding school was like. The castle, the grounds, the forest, some of the professors, the classes. She'd given vivid detail on some aspects, she'd skirted awkwardly over others, but Blair got the feeling there were things being left out. Not, perhaps, school-important details, but social things. She still remembered the run in with Abraxas and Lucius Malfoy in Diagon Alley and could recall with perfect clarity the way the man had spoken about muggles, about Blair's half-blood status, about Slytherin house itself. And while she wasn't entirely sure what it all meant, she had a pretty decent idea.

"Yes," she said slowly, "it's a giant castle, out in the middle of nowhere so muggles can't find it. There are all sorts of enchantments on it, too, just in case. And we'll have classes that are all about magic. None of that math stuff you do now," she cast a disdainful look over at the haphazard pile of muggle school work books in the corner of Lily's bedroom. Her friend didn't seem to notice.

"What kind of magic will we learn?" she asked excitedly, "Do you know any spells or anything?"

"Er," Blair looked down at her lap and twisted her fingers, "No, I don't know any spells. You need a wand to cast them properly, after all." Which, of course, she didn't have.

It was an old argument. From the time she'd turned six, she'd been begging Eileen to purchase her a wand from Ollivander's and each and every time they went to Diagon Alley, she was flatly refused. Blair wasn't sure why; it wasn't as if she planned on using it for anything _bad_. She just wanted to get a head start; things had been rather boring since Lily had begun to attend muggle primary school the previous year and she only wanted something to occupy her time. Her mother didn't see it that way. Neither did her father.

But she was done speaking with him on the topic of magic anyways. His cowardly attitude towards it was embarrassing at best.

"A wand?" Lily squealed excitedly, "A real wand?"

Blair's mood was deteriorating rapidly on this train of conversation, so she changed the topic quickly.

"We're sorted into houses when we get there," she blurted out, "Mum says they become like your family."

Eileen hadn't said that, actually. Blair had just assumed it.

"Houses?" Lily cocked her head, "What do you mean? Do we live in them?"

Blair bit back a chuckle, "Yes. There are four of them," she paused, suddenly feeling strangely nervous, "I'm going to be in Slytherin."

Lily's eyes opened wide again, "You already know which one you're going to be in? How?"

"Oh, er," the nervousness was growing and she wasn't sure why, "Well, my Mum was in Slytherin. And I think most of her family was—"

"What about me?" Lily cut her off eagerly, "What house will I be in?"

And there it was.

Blair had known Lily for over two years now. They played together nearly every day over the summer and often spent the weekends of the school year wandering the woods or spending time in their respective bedrooms. She considered the redhead her best friend and liked to think she knew her rather well.

And because of this, Blair knew there was no way Lily would be in Slytherin.

Eileen hadn't explicitly told her about the requirements of the house. She hadn't gone into detail about any of them actually; she'd just said they placed people based on personality and intelligence. But Blair had met Abraxas. She'd met Lucius. And she knew her mother, even the aspects of her that Eileen didn't want her familiar with. There was a certain darkness to Slytherin, a certain undercurrent that Blair knew full well she possessed.

Lily didn't.

Lily was too kind, to open, to _honest_ to be a Slytherin. She smiled a lot and she found humor in many things that Blair found tiring. She had too much light, too much joy, too much love. And, above all that, there was one more reason, the reason she'd been nervous, why she'd been reluctant to have this conversation in the first place.

Lily was a muggle-born.

"I don't know," Blair said softly, carefully avoiding Lily's wide eyes.

--

"Mum?"

Eileen looked up from putting the finishing touches on the family's Christmas tree to find Blair standing awkwardly beside her and fiddling with a piece of garland. She blinked; _never_, in the nearly eight years she'd been around, had Blair looked so uncomfortable. She dropped the bit of muggle Christmas lights she was working with and placed her hands on each of her daughter's shoulders.

"Yes? What is it?"

Big black eyes rose to hers. Blair bit her lip.

"I want to ask you a question," she said quietly, her gaze darting from Eileen's, to the tree, which they had set up in the corner of their sitting room and had just finished decorating, to the small pile of gifts they had already received from Tobias's distant relatives, "but I don't think you're going to like it."

Eileen's stomach squirmed uncomfortably, but she continued to stare into Blair's eyes, "Ask," she said strongly, firmly, and her daughter took a deep breath.

"Lily's a muggle," she said hurriedly, "and she's a witch. And Mr. Malfoy said it was bad that I was a half-blood," Eileen, not for the first time, found herself wishing for a less intelligent child, "So I was wondering—will it matter much that Lily's a muggle-born?"

She wanted to lie. She wanted to tell her daughter that Abraxas was an anomaly in wizard kind, one of a very select few that disliked anyone less of less than pure-blood. She wanted to keep her daughter innocent to the darker facets of the wizarding world, if only for a little longer. But Blair wasn't stupid and it was only a matter of time before she discovered it for herself—and, most likely, in ways Eileen wouldn't like her to learn. So she pushed her fingers into soft black hair, running it gently through from Blair's hairline to the tips, which brushed her shoulder blades.

"There are some wizards," Eileen said quietly, "like Mr. Malfoy, who believe that anyone less than pure-blood is of a lower class, are less magically talented and therefore not worthy of magical training," Blair lifted her gaze, which had been on her shoes since she'd asked the question, as her mother cupped her cheek, "They are _wrong_, Blair. Some of the best witches and wizards I know are muggle-born. And they are just as magical as anyone of pure-blood. Some even more so."

Blair's brow furrowed slightly, "But there are some people like Mr. Malfoy."

Eileen shut her eyes and lowered her chin, "Yes, Blair," she confessed, thinking miserably of the Slytherin Common Room, "There are."

--

Christmas passed without incident. Clarice visited and, though Tobias's behavior had grown so ridiculously withdrawn that neither Blair nor her mother could even stand spending too much time with him anymore, he seemed almost happy for the first time in months. He'd even gotten time off of work, which probably added to his remarkably good mood, and spent the week and a half between Christmas and New Years at home relaxing. He and Blair even bonded, though indirectly, in their love for reading, as the two of them spend hours lounging in the sitting room, each buried in their respective books.

The tension returned, however, on the day after New Years.

All three of them were in the sitting room. Despite the past two weeks, the situation felt odd to Blair, who had grown used to her father being nothing short of a recluse. Still, her powerful awareness of Tobias's presence didn't stop her attention from wavering and, while she was working on her latest palace for her still-nameless stuffed wolf, she flat out forgot he was in the room when, almost carelessly, she lifted her hand and summoned a block from the box across the room.

"_What are you doing?_"

Blair jumped and looked up at the same moment her father exploded to his feet, nearly knocking over his glass of wine and throwing his book down hard on the floor in the process. Eileen lowered her newspaper—_The Daily Prophet_—to stare at him nervously.

"Tobias, what—?"

"Did you see what she did?" Blair blinked, stunned as her father brandished a violent finger in her direction, spittle flying from his lips as he shouted, "Did you see what she made that block do? I tolerated her _accidental_ levitations when she was a baby! But that was _intentional!_ I won't have that in my house, girl!"

Eileen stood, her blue eyes blazing dangerously, "Tobias, that is _enough!_"

"No!"

Blair lowered the block to the ground and placed the wolf behind the only entirely completed wall of her newest castle, "Dad—," she began quietly, but Tobias had rounded on Eileen now.

"You told me she wouldn't be using—using _magic_ like this until she reached school age!" he roared, "And by that time she wouldn't be allowed to, so I wouldn't have to see it!" Blair's chest constricted at the words. He _wouldn't have to see it? _What did he think she was, some sort of _freak?_ He was supposed to be her _father! _Eileen's jaw set.

"She's more talented than I'd thought she'd be. It doesn't mean _anything_, Tobias—!"

"It means everything!" her father's eyes were bulging now and his voice was cracking on every other word, "How do I know she doesn't do it in front of our neighbors? How do I know she hasn't threatened neighborhood children? And even if she _hasn't_, how can I trust her _not_ to?"

"I wouldn't—," Blair began to say, but Eileen was shaking and glaring daggers at her husband.

"If I thought there was a problem, I would fix it!" she cried, "She's _my _daughter, Tobias, and I think I know her better than most. Certainly better than _you._"

If there was one thing Blair absolutely despised, it was when talking adults forgot she was there. It was something her parents were starting to do more and more often and, no matter how loud she tried to speak over them or how much noise she intentionally made, they were just too fixated on each other to notice. "_Mum_," she said sharply, but still her parents continued to ignore her, each breathing heavily and looking as if they were either going to start screaming at each other again or, perhaps, literally explode.

Tobias snorted in response to Eileen's last words, "Naturally. Witches flock together."

And for a split second, Blair's temper got the better of her.

There was this vase, one that Tobias practically worshipped because it had come from his favorite great grandfather's house, sitting on an out of the way corner of the room. It was about a foot in height and reminded Blair powerfully of this particularly hideous dress Petunia favored, with a pink, flowery design that was drawn across its cream surface in thin lines. She'd always hated it, she'd never liked the way it looked or the way it clashed so horribly with everything else in the sitting room. Perhaps that was why, when her grip on her control slipped that barest fraction, it was this vase that was targeted.

Her magic lashed out in her fit of temper. The vase was split clean in two.

A ringing silence followed this. Both Tobias and Eileen had turned at the sound and stiffened at the sight of the ruined vase. Blair herself was in shock. She hadn't willed it; she hadn't even seen it coming. It had just _happened_, far outside the realm of her control. And it had felt _strange_. Not just strange. _Dark._

Tobias drew in a sharp breath, turning his back on the vase and fixing Blair in a furious stare. She braced herself, he would undoubtedly shout himself hoarse at her now and she knew full well she deserved it. What had just happened was inexcusable, she'd promised her mother more than once that she would make absolute sure she kept control of herself. And she had, she'd done a very good job of it. Right up until the vase had snapped.

But then Eileen moved, reaching into her back pocket and tugging out, to the surprise of both Tobias and Blair, her wand.

The man's mouth, which had opened in preparation for the shouting, snapped shut and his eyes fixed on his wife's right hand.

Eileen waved it and muttered something Blair didn't catch; the vase shuddered a moment before putting itself back together.

"This—," Tobias began, but Eileen turned and fixed him in a nasty look.

"_Leave_, Tobias," she snapped, and Blair flinched. Tobias shot her one last, scathing glance before stomping out of the sitting room.

Eileen sank back down onto the arm chair she had occupied before, her wand dangling limply from her hands. Blair stared up at her nervously, swallowing hard to try to rid herself of the lump in her throat. It just wouldn't go away.

"Mum," she said after a moment, her voice small. Eileen didn't look up from her lap. She didn't even move. "Mum," Blair repeated, "I didn't mean to. I swear I didn't."

Her mother sighed.

"I know, Blair," she breathed, "I know."

--

_April, 1967_

"Blair, dear, could you hand me the salt?"

It wasn't the first time, but she was still slightly uncomfortable with eating dinner with the Evans'. Perhaps it was because Mr. and Mrs. Evans didn't look at her like she was a freak. Maybe it was because the two of them didn't glare at each other when they thought the children weren't looking. Or maybe it was—

"Let me do it!" Lily squealed from her seat beside Blair, thus two away from Mr. Evans, who was holding out his hand expectantly for the salt shaker. The man blinked once and his face split into a wide grin as he nodded. He always enjoyed Lily's blatant displays of magic.

Blair frowned, feeling awkward as the salt shaker lifted off its place at the opposite side of the table beside Mrs. Evans and floated lazily across the food and drinks to fall gently into Mr. Evans's palm.

"Brilliant, Lily!" he laughed, "It's going to be wonderful when you start at the school! What was it called again, Blair?"

"Hogwarts," she told her peas. Lily was beaming so widely Blair could see it from the corner of her eyes.

"I can't wait!" she said breathlessly and Blair glanced up in time to see a rather jealous look pass Petunia's face, "The first spell I want to learn is one that will let me clean my room with one wave of my wand."

She and Mr. and Mrs. Evans all chuckled at this and Blair found herself gripping the seat of her chair with unnecessary force. This was probably her fault—how enchanted the Evans's were with Lily's magic, how miserable Petunia seemed each and every time it came up in casual conversation, and how they all seemed to think that, once Lily began her education, she would be able to solve mundane and perhaps even serious problems with a flick of her wand. Blair swallowed hard.

"You can't," she said quietly, even as Mrs. Evans began to simper about how she wanted Lily to learn drying spells for her laundry and such. A strange silence descended and Blair had to look back down at her plate. She seemed to be causing a lot of those lately.

"She can't?" Mrs. Evans echoed quietly, "What do you mean, Blair, dear?"

Blair didn't have to look at Lily to know she was upset.

"Witches aren't allowed to use magic outside of school until they're seventeen," she said quietly and added, after a pregnant pause, "I'm sorry, Lily. I probably should have told you sooner."

"But—," Lily's voice was strained, "I _have_ used magic outside of school! I just did it! And I've seen you do it too!"

Blair nodded stiffly, "It doesn't matter until after you start school."

Mr. Evans put down the salt shaker with a sharp _tap_. She fought a flinch.

"Why is that?" Mrs. Evans asked, "Why does it matter?"

Eileen hadn't told her the reason the night she'd broken Tobias's vase, she'd just said that Blair needed to understand that, once she started at Hogwarts, her right to use magic at Spinner's End would be forfeit. But, once again, she'd heard enough, she'd seen enough, to understand why. It was the reason her father's pupils contracted with fear every time she slipped up and used magic around him, especially nowadays. The reason there was a Decree of Secrecy.

"Because," she said quietly, "just because you've had some classes doesn't mean you understand what you're doing. And the more you know, the more damage you can do."

It was strange, but for the first time, the Evans's didn't look delighted by the idea of something magical. Lily bit her lip and looked at her lap.

Blair couldn't ignore the pang of guilt the sight caused.

--

A/N: So, like, thanks for the reviews. It would be totally awesome if I could get some more. I'm sort of addicted to this story; the ones on my spicedcheese profile are being pushed aside for the time being. Yeah, I know, I'm totally lame.

LOL just noticed I wrote "Mr. and Mrs. Petunia" instead of "Mr. and Mrs. Evans." Yeah, that wasn't right.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: No. Just—_no_.

REVIEWS ARE GOOD. PLEASE GIVE THEM.

_March, 1968_

"What are _you_ doing here?"

Blair glanced up at Petunia, who had appeared in the door to Lily's bedroom with her hands on her hips and her mouth set firmly into an unflattering smile. She was wearing another one of her hideous, flower print dresses, this time a blue and orange number that, to be honest, really should not have existed, let alone purchased by _anyone._ Blair folded her arms and turned to face the blonde fully, carefully keeping her expression neutral.

"Lily invited me," she replied coldly and Petunia grimaced.

"I still don't get why Mum and Dad let you in the house," she said in an acidic tone, "Even your own _father_ can't even look at you anymore."

Blair knew full well what she was talking about. She'd heard the whispers, spoken loudly behind the backs of both her and her mother in the local supermarket, the post office, on the street. She heard what they said, what they thought of Tobias, of the two of them. Plus, the next door neighbors, the Abbeys, were hardly deaf. And with all the shouting Tobias did lately, it was impossible that they didn't know—

Petunia snorted, "You think people don't notice," Blair hid a flinch and tried to ignore the way her stomach twisted, "People say he's a drunk, you know," the blonde continued recklessly, "I don't blame him, with a kid like you."

People also said Tobias Snape resented his wife and loathed his daughter.

It wasn't far off the point.

Blair's fists clenched under her upper arms and she could feel it slipping—her control had been limited, at _best_, in the past few months and more often than not, whenever Tobias started cursing and drinking, something usually got broken, something that typically belonged exclusively to the man in question. _This _absolutely charming conversation wasn't upsetting her quite as much, but _still. _She knew full well that she had a temper and that it was rising fast. Petunia didn't seem to notice and Blair was sure the girl would high tail it out of there if she understood exactly _how far_ her words were pushing her. She tossed a stray bit of stringy blonde hair over her shoulder and smirked nastily.

"What?" she asked silkily, "Nothing to say?"

"I've got _plenty_ to say," Blair ground out before she could stop herself, clenching her teeth shut seconds later and silently berating herself for letting the muggle girl get to her. But Petunia was looking highly triumphant now and, as much as she tried to fight it, fantasies about setting fire to that thin, too-light hair were starting to dance rather insistently in the back of her mind.

"Oh really?" Petunia's left eyebrow lifted lazily, "Say it then."

Blair noticed it seconds later. The large ceramic lamp, sitting precariously close to the edge of Lily's dresser and lurking dangerously over Petunia's head. She immediately wished she hadn't seen it, she literally had to _force_ herself to meet Petunia's pale, blue eyes afterwards and even then, the thought was shouting for her attention. _A little scare_, some sick, deranged part of her argued softly, maliciously, _a little scare would do her some good._

Would it? Blair swallowed hard.

"You're—," she began, but found herself at a loss for words. What _was_ Petunia? Not cruel, necessarily, but—, "You're _jealous_."

That was it. The bitterness in the little girl's attitude. The anger she exhibited whenever Lily slipped up and used magic in her presence. She wanted it, Blair realized, wanted the same power her sister and Blair had been given, wanted to experience the rush, the thrill, the superiority that was the use of magic.

Petunia flushed an angry scarlet.

"Of you? Don't be ridiculous," she said in a surprisingly steady tone, though the way her fists were shaking betrayed her. Blair narrowed her eyes.

"You think I don't notice, Petunia?" she threw Petunia's earlier words back at her with malice. The blonde's eyes widened with shock and hurt and anger and something else and Blair was quite sure she'd hit the nail on the head. There was a loaded pause and then—

"At least I'm not a _freak_," Petunia spat.

Something happened, Blair realized at that moment, each and every time she lost her fragile control. It was like a wall dropped, slipped, _whatever_ and left her with a feeling of almost—she hesitated to call it _profound_, it was too dramatic for her tastes—darkness. And the magic she always felt in the seconds after this happened, well, there was only one word for it.

The lamp cracked and twitched forward to the edge of the cabinet. Petunia continued to glare and the lamp shifted again and again and then, without any warning, the door behind her swung open.

"Oh," said Lily, entering holding a bowl of popcorn and looking awkwardly between her sister and friend, "Tuney, what are you doing in here?"

Blair tried to stop it. She really did. _Really._

Later, when she replayed it as she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, she realized that, had it not been for Lily, Petunia would have been standing exactly where the lamp hit the floor and shattered. As it was, Lily had taken two steps into the room, her sister had taken two steps to the side, and the lamp landed in the small corner they'd formed with their small bodies and exploded into what looked to be a million pieces, but was actually only about fifteen.

Lily shrieked and dropped the popcorn, which, luckily, was in a plastic bowl. Petunia opened her mouth in a sort of silent scream, stumbled backwards and tripped, landing squarely on her behind. Both turned to stare at the mess, but Blair, standing stock still and only _really _aware of the blood pounding so insistently in her ears, had directed her gaze at Petunia and the horrified expression on her face.

Her stomach churned.

Two seconds. Two seconds had made the difference between Petunia and the floor. Two seconds had determined whether or not Blair would have—

Petunia turned large, round eyes in her direction. The walls contorted strangely, the colors of the ceiling, wallpaper, and throw rug beneath their feet blurred and twisted and it felt rather as if the room was shirking. Lily looked up as well, first at her sister, and then she swung around towards Blair, throwing her red hair over her shoulder and narrowing her green gaze to slits.

_They know._

Lily spoke quietly. Blair would have preferred it if she had shouted.

"Did you do that?"

She wanted to shake her head. She wanted to deny it, to place the blame on fate or coincidence or some other force that could afford it. Lily was her only bloody friend, she was the only other young witch Blair knew, and she wasn't sure she could handle losing her friendship.

But she wasn't a liar. Eileen had taught her better than that. God, _Tobias_ had taught her better than that.

So she didn't move.

Lily closed her eyes, but Blair could see it in the way her lips drew back at the sides, in the way her brows had furrowed and her fingers had clenched into tiny, angry fists. She was angry, but worse than that: she was _hurt._

"I think you should leave," Lily said quietly.

Blair didn't need to be told twice.

She fled.

--

Eileen saw it immediately.

Her hair was falling out of its once perfect braid and single, wispy strands were sticking to her face, a result, undoubtedly, of the rain that had begun to fall just over an hour ago. Her eyes were downcast and her shoulders were drooping steadily as she wandered from the front hall to the living room, her steps heavy, yet strangely silent. Eileen followed Blair as she moved into the sitting room and sank into the lone armchair and watched as she buried her head in her hands. Those small, fragile hands.

It occurred to her for the first time, as she observed quietly, that Clarice had been right that first time she'd visited. Blair _was_ beautiful, or she would be, given time. True, her eyes were a bit too big for her face and intimidating in their darkness, her cheeks lacked a healthy color and her nose was a bit tiny. But her fingers were slender and her form was lean. Her face was round and could be open and expressive when she wanted it to be. She was and would be unique, a tragic sort of untouchable beauty that Eileen had dreamed of growing up.

For a moment, a split second of vain weakness, she was jealous of her only child.

Then she knelt, shoving the resentment aside because, though her nose was too big and her cheeks were too sunken and her brow was too heavy, she was married to a man she, more or less, loved and had a daughter she adored and it was enough for her. She'd chosen it and she'd stand by it.

"What happened?" Eileen asked quietly, tugging the small, black hair tie from the bottom of Blair's braid and threading her fingers through the now free locks. Her daughter shuddered, hiccupped and Eileen realized: she was _crying_.

"Mum," she choked and Eileen suddenly found herself with arms full of Blair. It had been a while and Blair had never been an overtly affectionate child, but it was an instinct that would never die and she pressed little girl's body firmly into her chest and smoothed her hands over her rumpled, damp spring jacket.

"What happened?" she repeated gently and felt those fragile hands twist into the front of her blouse. Blair shook her head against Eileen's stomach.

"I tried to stop it," she confessed softly.

And that was all Eileen really needed to know.

--

_May, 1968_

Tobias wanted no part of it. She'd let him know, of course, but he'd been adamant that he didn't want to know more than the fact that it was happening and soon. He hadn't protested though, which had surprised her, but she supposed, in the way she had presented it, it had seemed like the best option. Blair needed more _control_, after all, and Eileen knew that at this point, a wand would be the only thing that would create that.

Blair, despite the years she'd spent practically begging for a wand, didn't seem at all excited. Lily hadn't been in contact since the incident seven weeks before—her daughter hadn't been specific, but the way she'd worded what she did say (_I almost hurt Petunia. Badly._) had told Eileen enough. She was of the opinion that they were little girls and prone to drama and, surely, Lily had lost control before and could understand what had happened. But Blair seemed to think she'd ruined her only close friendship and no amount of attempted comfort on Eileen's part seemed to alleviate that.

Still, she seemed a bit brighter the morning of their trip to Diagon Alley. She even offered a quiet, "Have a good day," when Tobias grunted a word of parting, drawing confused stares from both her parents.

By the time they reached London, at around noon, Eileen had decided that a wand had been a brilliant idea because, while Blair wasn't broadcasting it, she was obviously happier than she'd been in ages and this, to Eileen, was the point. She rushed through her errands, perhaps purchasing dung beetles for too high a price in her haste, but the way Blair's eyes lit up when Ollivander's tiny shop came into view was worth it.

Eileen offered her hand to her daughter, who gripped it with tiny, slender fingers. Eight years old—perhaps she _had_ waited too long to purchase a wand for the girl, but still, better late than never, as they say.

The shop was as dark and solemn as it had been on the day she herself had come for a wand and the old man that appeared from within the shadows and dust deep within the nearly endless shelves did not appear to have aged a day. The sun drifted through the stained windows behind them as if through a filter, lending an unnatural, unearthly light to the room. For the second time in her life, a feeling of intense foreboding swept over Eileen, a feeling she recognized as born from the sheer magical power the shop possessed. Ollivander stepped forward, smiling mildly, and his silver eyes locked on Eileen's.

"Miss Prince," he greeted softly, "My dear, it has been far too long. Ten inches, oak, unicorn tail hair, I believe?"

She swallowed hard and wrapped her fingers around the wand in her pocket, letting her palms rest firmly against the smooth wood, "Yes, sir," she replied, then paused because the sound of her maiden name had thrown her off. She'd almost forgotten, in her monotonous, half-muggle life, who'd she'd once been to the wizarding world: a well known, well respected, pure-blooded princess.

Ollivander's probing stare turned to Blair, who had gone completely still beside her the moment the old man had appeared. For the first time since they'd entered the shop, Eileen looked down too and, to her shock, there was a look of fierce defiance on her daughter's face. She glanced quickly at Ollivander to gauge his reaction to this, but instead of annoyance or amusement, she saw merely interest and perhaps, strangely, a bit of respect.

"It's Snape now," she corrected absently as the old wand maker and her daughter stared each other down. Ollivander's smile returned and he inclined his head.

"And you?" he asked softly, "What is your name?"

"Blair," her daughter replied immediately, her voice snapping over the words. Ollivander bowed slightly and, though Blair's jaw tightened noticeably, there was nothing mocking about it. Eileen shifted uncomfortably.

Again, she wished she had a more innocent child. Because, undoubtedly, things like this would not happen.

"We need a wand," she said and her voice cracked on the word _wand_. Ollivander reached into his old robes and drew out what appeared to be the very same tape measure he'd used on her, almost thirty years to the day now.

"Naturally," he approached Blair without hesitation, barely pausing when she tensed in response to his growing proximity. She looked almost like a cornered animal, taking a small step back for every large step he took forward and when he finally did reach her, she endured his examination with a stiff back and her fingers curled into tight fists at her sides.

"Wand arm," he muttered under his breath after measuring her height and Blair thrust her right arm forward aggressively, glaring at Ollivander as he rested the tape measure against the sleeve of her light, spring coat. He smiled; humming softly to himself as he left the small tape to its work, walking away from the little girl as she watched, with wide eyes, the measure come to life. It wrapped firmly around her wrist, then dropped to measure the height of her calf, then lifted again, to rest along her shoulders.

Eileen followed the old man with narrowed eyes as he wandered into shadows and ran his long, thin fingers over the multitude of long, dusty boxes on the endless shelves, still singing that strange tune softly and tossing the occasional, silver glance back at Blair.

It took a good fifteen minutes and the tape measure was measuring the back of Blair's skull from ear to ear, but Ollivander finally returned, holding three boxes and looking quite pleased.

"I must admit," he said cheerfully, "that you are particularly different to place. To me, you could be one of two things and the decision, it seems, will be entirely up to you."

Eileen gawked at Ollivander, a slow, draining sort of horror spreading outwards from her heart to her arms and legs and fingers and toes. What in Merlin's name was that supposed to mean, one of two things? She had no misconceptions; she knew she didn't know Blair, at least not as deeply as a mother should. But she also knew that the little girl had a remarkable grasp on who she was, what her strengths were, what her weaknesses were. Her knowledge and her limitations. And she was sure that Blair had decided long ago who and what she was going to be. If she had to guess, it was the day she'd made the choice to continue to see Lily, despite what she _knew _the world would say. Blair, in a way, was already who she would grow up to be.

Ollivander was surveying her daughter with something akin to fascination now and, as Eileen watched, a sudden, irrational urge to grab her and run as fast and as far from the wizarding world as possible rose from her stomach and bubbled up to the back of her throat.

Strangely, the feeling resembled vomit.

Blair blinked, a slight furrow appearing between her brows as the tape measure moved to her left pinkie finger. Ollivander shot it a look and murmured, "Enough," and, when it dropped quietly to the floor in a heap, he held out the first box.

"Holly," he explained slowly, "phoenix feather. Twelve inches."

Eileen watched as, with shaking fingers, Blair opened the lid of the box and reached inside. The wand was indeed long, too long for her petite daughter, and looked almost awkward in her grip. Ollivander shook his head almost automatically and wrenched it out of her grasp, his pale, pale eyes running over the other two boxes for a long moment before thrusting the one in his left hand at Blair. Her daughter took it, looking quite nervous, and tugged out a long, dark wand.

"Ebony," Ollivander said softly, "again, a phoenix feather. Nine inches."

Blair looked up at Ollivander, who was staring at the wand with an almost frightening amount of intensity, then to Eileen, who nodded in what she hoped was an encouraging way.

Blair waved it.

The two shelves along the left wall exploded, the boxes flying from their resting places and their wands bursting forth to land haphazardly on the floor. Dust was stirred up in the commotion and, as the second shelf from the window began to tip forward, Eileen panicked, drawing out her own wand and waving it frantically to right the mess.

She then turned to face Ollivander as the dust settled, bracing herself for any anger or frustration she would find. She'd forgotten, of course, that it had taken forty wands, two blown out shelves, three pried up floor boards, and two shattered windows to find _her _wand and that Ollivander had been delighted the entire time.

And now, true to pattern, Ollivander was smiling and offering the third and final selection to her daughter.

"Ebony. Dragon heartstring. Eleven inches," Blair eyed the wand nervously, clearly unwilling to cause another explosion. Ollivander placed a hand on her shoulder, "Go on. I promise, this one will be perfect."

Blair frowned slightly and shut her eyes.

Her wrist twitched experimentally and, when nothing happened, she dropped her arm a few inches.

Silver sparks sputtered from the end of her wand and, as she opened her eyes to stare at them in wonder, began to flow freely when she began to drag her hand through the air, drawing shapes that lingered momentarily before fading back into nothingness. Eileen watched with awe, so _aware_ of the sheer _power_ her little Blair was giving off. Ollivander's eyes had lit up; shining bizarrely in the light Blair was creating.

"Miss Blair," he said and she looked up at him, her black eyes glazed with delight, "It was a pleasure to meet you."

Eileen began scrabbling through her purse, searching desperately for the proper amount of sickles to get out of the bloody shop. She heard Blair shift her weight from one foot to the other.

"Thank you, sir," she murmured, "it was nice to meet you too."

Eileen shoved the thirteen sickles into Ollivander's hand and he placed his free palm on the top of Blair's head.

"You, child," he said quietly, "are destined for greatness."

--

A/N: So, like, Ollivander. He always knows, man, he _always knows._

So, uh, please review.

Also, there is no record of what makes up Snape's wand. So I improvised.


	6. Chapter 6

Okay—Hogwarts is coming next chapter! So, review, review, review!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

_July, 1968_

Lily missed Blair.

Not that she could tell anyone or act on it—her parents didn't know, exactly, what had happened between the two sisters and Blair, but Petunia had made it clear that she was uncomfortable having another witch, or rather, _that witch_ in the house, through the use of many tears and multiple tantrums. Lily had kept her mouth shut through it all, she was still in shock that her friend had almost done such a thing, and to her _sister_, but it'd been almost five months and, despite the muggles she often spent time with, she was getting lonely. After all, as Blair had said so many times before, _muggles just don't understand._

With the arrival of summer, Lily had taken to wandering in the forest where she and her best friend—because that was what Blair was, her _best friend_, and she wasn't stupid enough to believe that Petunia hadn't provoked every action Blair had taken that day—had first met. For the first few weeks of the holidays she'd had no luck, the woods were completely empty of any human presence and she began to worry—maybe, in her assumptions and her refusal to hear any explanations Blair might have had for what had happened, _she _had been the one to push _Blair_ away, not the other way around. Perhaps the other witch had realized how fragile their friendship had evidently been and, instead of making any effort to fix it, had just given up on it instead.

Lily grumbled to herself as she dragged on her trainers for her latest excursion into the woods.

This was all _Petunia's_ fault.

Today she didn't walk to the park, she _ran_. There was something urgent in the pit of her stomach this time, something that had been brought on by the possibility that Blair didn't want to see her, didn't want to be her friend, that made Lily want to get to those trees as soon as possible. She was desperate, she _needed_ to talk to someone who could understand her, because she'd been feeling cooped up, misplaced, _whatever_ ever since she'd ordered Blair from her life.

Her feet took control and lead her in the direction of that little stream.

--

Blair was feeling rather put out.

Tobias, it seemed, had taken a random week long vacation, which meant, as her mother worked in the cellar and he lounged around in the sitting room, that he didn't want her in the house. Yes, he had been trying harder as of late to be more accepting, but with the introduction of her wand into the equation, things had gotten rather tense again. He hadn't explicitly said it, but he'd effectively kicked her out of the house for the day.

Blair liked wandering, but the fact that she'd been forced to had made it less appealing. She'd avoided the woods at first, something about the idea of being sent there by her father left a bitter taste on her tongue, but inevitably, after two hours of exploring the streets of the small village, her feet took her back to Spinner's End and then further and into the trees.

At first, she didn't know where to go. Blair had avoided the stream since Lily had kicked her out of her house and, effectively, life, not wanting any reminder of how badly she had messed her first and only friendship up. But today, strangely, she felt this magnetic pull towards the spot and, though she fought valiantly at first, she found herself walking slowly, steadily, to the small brook.

There was this part in the trees and her view, though small, of the stream was good. She could see her favorite spot—a spot she had often visited with Lily—and she frowned, because the grass looked flattened, as if someone had been sitting on it, and as far as she knew, she and Lily were the only ones who—

Blair broke through the last of the branches blocking her view and stopped dead.

Lily's wide green eyes had fixed on her the moment she'd stepped into the small clearing and the thin, bent stick she'd been using to draw what appeared to be a variety of animals in the muddy bank had slipped from her grasp. The redhead looked as shell shocked as Blair felt and the only thing it seemed either of them was capable of doing was _staring_. Or perhaps the better term was _gawking_. She felt rather as if her heart was going to break out of her rib cage with the speed at which it was pounding and, even as she forced herself to breathe normally under the other girl's gaze, it was showing no signs of slowing down.

There was a long moment of silence and then—

"Blair?" Lily whispered tentatively. Her heart, in sharp contrast to its previous behavior, stopped dead.

Lily sounded hopeful. _Hopeful._ As if she, too, had missed their friendship.

"Lily?" Blair asked softly in reply, wary of reading too much into the other girl's tone but praying desperately that she was—

And suddenly, the redhead was on her feet, splashing across the shallow brook and throwing her arms around Blair's neck. She found herself propelled backwards into a rather rough sitting position, her lap full of Lily, her eyes clouded by vibrant red hair, and the sound of two sets of sobs roaring in her ears.

"I _missed_ you," Lily wailed into her t shirt, tangling her small fingers in the fabric and hiccupping with the force of her tears. Blair could feel wetness on her own face, along with the beginnings of a rather stupid grin.

"I missed you too," she confessed quietly.

_January, 1969_

On Blair's ninth birthday, Lily knew there was something wrong.

She'd gone to her friend's house, carrying the large box that contained the present she'd picked out for Blair herself (a diary, with a thick, leather binding and a red ribbon attached to the top to be used as a page holder) and knocked on the door. That had been the first sign. It'd taken a remarkably long time for anyone to answer and the house had appeared strangely quiet and dark as she'd waited. She'd even begun to wonder if perhaps Blair and her family had gone out for the day when, exactly ten minutes after she'd knocked, the door swung open to reveal Mrs. Snape.

The first and only other time Lily had seen Blair's mother, which had been about two months before her brief falling out with Blair, she'd come off as a strong woman. She was very tall, and she had a very severe, powerfully drawn face. Now, though, that chin that'd been so steady before seemed remarkably wobbly and the eyes that had shown with such intelligence and poise seemed horribly blank. Lily stared a moment, suddenly very uncomfortable and quite sure she'd walked in on something she shouldn't have, before opening her mouth to speak.

"Hello," her voice sounded very squeaky, "I-I'm Lily."

Mrs. Snape nodded slowly, "I remember."

"O-oh," Lily couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this intruding, "I, uh," she held up the box awkwardly, looking determinedly at her shoes, "I have a present for Blair's birthday."

For the longest minute of Lily's life, Mrs. Snape didn't say a word.

"Mum," Blair's voice broke the tense silence and the girl herself appeared seconds later, peering around her mother's waist, "Oh, Lily," she said softly and, as Lily looked into her friend's eyes, a feeling of complete and utter _dread_ swept over her, "I'll be back later, mum," Blair pushed passed the woman without so much as a glance and grabbed Lily's free wrist, dragging her down the front walkway.

Mrs. Snape shut the door behind them without so much as a word.

--

Lily hadn't bothered asking what she was doing, and for that Blair was grateful.

She was still swallowing the bile in her throat, even after two hours, and her side was beginning to hurt rather a lot, despite what she'd told Eileen in the aftermath of the morning. Tobias, despite how thin and sallow he looked, had a remarkably strong right hook.

It was cold and she hadn't put on a proper coat, just a light fall jacket, but the crisp air was soothing to her aching ribs and the rest of her was slowly turning numb, a sensation she welcomed at the moment. Lily let herself be pulled down several streets and, though Blair didn't know exactly where she was going or what she was looking for, she felt as if she was accomplishing _something_, so she kept walking. Her breath was coming in short spurts, leaving several, wispy clouds in the air trailing behind her and the few inches of snow that had fallen before Christmas were crunching with remarkable volume under her boots and all she knew was that she needed to get away and _soon._

She yanked Lily around a corner and caught sight of a little abandoned garden shed that stood apart from the few houses at the end of a lane that could have been Spinner's End's twin. Blair twisted around, looking for a street sign. _Murphy Gardens._ She turned resolutely and started for the shed.

It was then that Lily decided to speak, or perhaps found her voice after losing it at the feet of Blair's mother, "Blair, what're we—?"

"Just—," Blair cut her off, her own voice giving out quickly, "Not yet. Wait."

In all honesty, she wasn't quite sure of what she was going to do when they reached the shed and she would be forced to explain. This wasn't something Lily could possibly understand. Because _her_ father loved her. _ Her_ father wasn't afraid of her. And Tobias had finally shown the true depths of his tolerance, or rather, _intolerance_—

Blair pushed the door of the shed open, wincing as it creaked dangerously, dragged Lily inside, and shut it behind them.

They were plunged into instant darkness, but she found she didn't mind this much. Lily stepped closer, obviously nervous of the setting, and probably of Blair's behavior itself. Blair shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, shuffling backwards only to find herself running into a large bucket and what appeared to be several rakes.

"Blair?" Lily hissed fearfully when objects neither of them could see began to shift and fall with their movements, "What's happening? Why are we in here?"

Eileen had told her not to swear hundreds of times. Blair ignored the order then as she dragged her wand out of the back of her jeans.

"_Lumos_," she snapped and a faint blue light appeared at the tip. Lily's eyes flew wide the next second as she stared at the wand; it was not the first time she'd seen it, but it was the first time she'd seen it do magic. Blair ignored the paralyzed look on her friend's face and turned, shifting through the pile of old, rusty garden tools to draw out first one small barrel, then another. She kicked one in Lily's direction before sinking down onto her own with a sigh. Her friend mimicked her, still staring and still clutching the box she'd first arrived at her house with. The redhead noticed Blair looking at it and blinked.

"Oh," she said softly, "Oh, right," she brandished the box at Blair, "Happy birthday."

She wasn't quite sure what brought on the reaction. After all, she should have been shocked, as this was her first gift from a friend. She also should have been pleased, but she got the feeling the emotion would be secondary and that she'd only become aware of it after the surprise wore off. But instead, quite inexplicably, she felt the beginnings of tears heating up the corners of her eyes. She hoped fervently that Lily wouldn't notice, but the next second—

"Blair?" the other girl sounded extremely anxious and mildly horrified, "It's alright, right? I mean, I just wanted to—"

"S'not you," Blair's voice was disgustingly thick with misery, "S'not you, Lily. This—this is great. I just—"

She just _what?_ It wasn't something she wanted to burden Lily with, her family problems were just that and her friend probably couldn't begin to imagine what it was to be loathed by a parent. Petunia was one thing, and she had more of an issue with jealousy than with hatred or fear, but Mr. and Mrs. Evans had been nothing but delighted when it'd been confirmed that their little girl was a witch. And stupid Tobias, he'd married a witch _knowing _what she was and _knowing t_hat whatever children he had with her would be just as magical as their mother and—

A violent sort of rage rose suddenly within Blair, settling like a weight on her already slumped shoulders.

Lily reached out and took her hand, "What happened, Blair?" she asked in a remarkably soothing tone, "You can tell me."

Could she? She was beginning to feel ill. And her stupid rib cage was starting to burn in earnest.

"I—," she began breathlessly, staring fixedly at the box in her lap.

"_You're a freak, girl! A freak! I can't be in this bloody house with you two—you two _witches _anymore_!"

Lily squeezed her hand gently.

"I hate him," Blair whispered and buried her face in her hands.

--

_April, 1969_

It took four months, but that little diary's pull was too much for Blair.

_Dear Diary,_

She felt rather stupid. It was a bloody _book_, why was she supposed to tell it her secrets, or whatever Lily had said? The other girl had assured her that it was _therapeutic_, which really, they were_ nine_ and Blair was quite sure that normal nine year olds didn't talk about things like that. She frowned deeply at the first, still-blank page, her pen poised over the crisp white paper, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

It'd been hard, telling Lily what had happened between her and her father and her mother on her ninth birthday. Admitting to being shouted at was one thing, but admitting to being struck was entirely another. She'd flatly refused to show Lily her ribs when the girl had panicked and had, with threats and glares, made it quite clear that no one else was to know. She'd been right; also, in assuming that Lily wasn't capable of understanding, no matter how good her intentions were, and she was infinitely glad when, the next time they'd played together, the other girl had avoided the topic all together. It wasn't something she wanted to talk about to anyone, much less her best and only friend (for fear of scaring her off), and it would have made things awkward had Lily tried. But sometimes, after dozing off for a moment or two when they spent time in the woods, she'd catch Lily staring at her with sadness and worry and uncertainty. The look bothered her, but acknowledging it would bring them back to the conversation they'd had in the shed, which was something she wasn't keen to revisit.

But still, sometimes, keeping it all in was just too much.

_My mother's depressed._

Blair frowned at her first sentence because, no matter how true it was, it wasn't something she wanted to start her diary with. But still, she couldn't bring herself to scratch it out.

_I hate my father. She knows, I'm fairly sure he knows it too. I don't care. She won't do anything and he's barely around anymore. "Work," he says. He's a liar._

A lump appeared in her throat. Little girls weren't supposed to write about things like this in their diary. They were supposed to write about their dolls and the boy next door and their favorite foods and books and other, meaningless things.

Perhaps Tobias was right. Perhaps she was a freak.

_I'm leaving for Hogwarts in a year and a half. It's too long. I need to get out of this house._

If she was, he was partly to blame. She wondered vaguely if he cared at all about that.

_Lily's the only thing that's keeping me here, actually. I think I'd run away if it weren't for her._

Blair dropped the pen suddenly, feeling sicker than she had in a long time.

After a moment of long, frightened staring, she slammed the little book shut.

--

_September, 1969_

"I asked my parents if I could skip school this year."

Blair glanced up from the piece of grass she'd been worrying, her brow furrowed.

"Really?"

Lily nodded slowly, "Yeah. They said no. Just in case I'm not invited to go to Hogwarts."

Blair frowned. There was a bit of insecurity in her friend's voice, a fear that she knew instinctively Lily had been harboring for a while now. "You will," she said firmly, meeting that green gaze steadily, "I promise."

The redhead let out her breath, "I hope so," she murmured, "I feel like—I feel odd when I'm around other muggles."

Again, though it was the first time in a while, a bit of guilt over the affect she'd had on Lily's life welled up in the pit of Blair's stomach, "That's because you're not one," she offered against her better judgment and Lily nodded, her eyes on the ground between them.

"I know."

There was an awkward pause.

"Can I see it?" Lily asked suddenly and Blair looked up at her sharply.

"What?"

"Your wand," she gestured vaguely at Blair's waist and averted her eyes.

Blair let out a slow breath.

Part of her knew this was a bad idea. Something about the thought of giving Lily a wand didn't sit right; the girl was a complete novice, after all, and Blair's own knowledge of magic was severely limited. She frowned and watched the redhead twist her fingers in her lap for a long moment before, with many misgivings, reaching into her back pocket and drawing out her wand.

"Be careful," she warned as she handed it over, watching warily as those green eyes lit up in delight at the sight of it. Lily's fingers wrapped around the handle and squeezed and, for one horrible moment, Blair felt as if the entire bank of their stream was going to explode.

Then a few stray sparks were spit from the end and Lily shrank in on herself.

"Maybe I'm not a witch," she said softly, watching her disappointing display drift lazily to the ground. Blair shook her head.

"No, you are," she reassured her friend, plucking the wand back on a reflex of _just in case_, "But this is my wand. You'll need your own to get it to work properly."

Lily gazed up at her tiredly, "I hope you're right."

Blair swallowed. The hairs on the back of her neck finally fell flat again.

--

_I think_, she wrote as she listened to the muffled sounds of her parents arguing later that night, _that Lily had the right idea. A year's too bloody long to wait._

--

A/N: Okay, so about the whole ninth birthday thing.

I tried to write it. The confrontation between Blair and Tobias, I mean. But the words just weren't coming. I swear, I must have rewritten it seven or eight times before I decided to go a different route. _This_ route. Lily's point of view was easier and I dunno, I felt like it fit better.

So, what I said at the beginning of the chapter stands. We're going to Hogwarts, man, so please review, because I totally want feedback. Thanks.


	7. Chapter 7

Okay, so I know I said Hogwarts. But I made it to the platform. The chapter was getting away from me, I felt like my writing was suffering, so I needed to put a stop to it. Sorry, but next chapter. Next chapter I seriously promise: HOGWARTS.

This chapter moves a bit quickly—getting through a year and a half is rather difficult, but I only wanted to touch a few main points. So, yes, quickness.

Also, I'm trying to strike a balance in this, between Blair's relationship with her family and Blair's relationship with Lily. She likes to keep the two separate, for obvious reasons, and when they do collide, it creates discomfort and uncertainty between the two girls. Because of this, Blair's entire attitude is quite different with Lily than it is at home. However, I'm not sure if I'm going overboard in the way I'm writing this. So, let me know. With reviews. Kthnks.

Allen Pitt: To answer your question, no, the "hating Potter for taking away Lily" thing will not be in play. At least, not in the sense you mean. But—well, I don't want to give too much away, but I will tell you that Blair's feelings for Lily are dangerous in that she's far too dependent on her continuing friendship. And I think she might know it, too. But no, Blair is not IN LOVE with Lily. She just loves her. Platonically. Yeah. Hopefully that didn't give too much away.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I do, however, own the _mysterious, faceless, so-far-nameless woman._ And I'll just leave it at that for now.

_February, 1970_

Tobias was having an affair.

Eileen had put it from her mind for ages, had pretended that he hadn't come home drunk every night for the past year with lipstick smeared on his neck and mouth, but this—this _excuse _was the last straw. _Working all night on Valentine's Day._ Did he think she was stupid, or did he just not care?

Perhaps the worst part was how hard she'd tried to hate him after Blair's ninth birthday. How hard she'd tried, was _still bloody trying_—and how miserably she'd failed.

"Mum."

Eileen glanced up from the book she'd been pretending to read, her eyes meeting those of her daughter, who was sitting, her legs folded under her, her hair falling into her face, on the couch a few feet away.

"Yes?" she asked and winced at how hollow her voice sounded.

Blair studied her face for a long moment, a slight crease appearing on her forehead as she stared. Eileen nearly squirmed; Blair's gaze was nothing if not intense, especially for a child, and she found herself wondering if every ten year old in the world was capable of such a look, or if it was just her own misfortune that had given Blair the gift.

"Nothing," the child breathed.

--

Later that evening, when she wandered up the stairs to ensure that Blair had actually gone to bed as she had claimed she was going to, Eileen found her little girl slumped at her desk, a pen hanging limply from her fingers and the diary she'd procured sometime around her ninth birthday opened to a page close to the beginning.

Only one sentence was written, but the handwriting was messy, angry, and heavy.

_I hate him for what he's done to her._

And instead of moving Blair from the undoubtedly uncomfortable position she had fallen asleep in; Eileen collapsed to the floor and sobbed at her daughter's feet.

--

_April, 1970_

Lily frowned as Blair paced.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."

She was _such_ a liar.

"Come _on_," Lily said impatiently, leaning back on her pillow and staring at the ceiling rather than watch her friend wear a hole in her bedroom floor, "I'm your best friend; I think I know when something is bothering you."

Blair shot her a disdainful look, "You're my _only _friend."

Lily rolled her eyes, "Same difference. Just tell me, you'll probably feel better."

The brunette stopped, folded her arms over her chest, and fixed her in a cold, black stare.

"You want to talk about Tobias?" she asked lowly.

Lily bit her lip.

She probably should have known.

--

Walking home from Lily's was usually a peaceful time for Blair. Alone time, a space between being someone she loved and dealing with someone she hated. Tobias, it seemed, had decided that leaving Spinner's End and, consequently, his family, wasn't worth the trouble or something, because he was around more often nowadays. Blair wasn't upset by this; it was more of a feeling of vague annoyance, because her father was a right drunk prat whenever he _was_ in the house and had taken to pretending she wasn't there. Not that she minded, not having to speak to him made the situation better, not worse, but still. Seeing his stupid, pissed face was more than she could stomach on most days.

But tonight. Tonight took things to a whole new level.

She was standing on a sidewalk about two blocks from Spinner's End, staring at the sunset and trying to stall returning to the house she had the misfortune of calling home, when she heard the voices. Turning her head to stare across the street, she caught sight of a pathetically drunk couple stumbling up the parallel sidewalk, wrapped around each other and laughing about something undoubtedly stupid. Blair scowled, disgusted by the behavior of the two adults, and was just about to turn away when she noticed how familiar the man's jacket was. That, in turn, led her to catch sight of his face.

The feeling of disgust turned quickly to one of violent rage.

The man was Tobias and that blonde was most definitely _not_ her mother.

Blair's fingers dug into her palms and she stood stalk still, her arms pressed against her sides, staring at her father's affair. Suddenly her mother's depression made sense—or rather, made _more_ sense, because aggressive, drunk, _faithful_ husbands were probably better than aggressive, drunk, _unfaithful_ ones.

A nearby tree branch creaked, jerking her from her rage. Blair blinked and glanced up at it: one of the longest, thickest limbs of the large oak behind her had cracked slightly and she swallowed, a sudden feeling of darkness sweeping over her.

She needed to get away from Tobias quickly. That shadowy side of her temper was starting to get the better of her.

--

"Mum!" Blair burst into the sitting room and Eileen glanced up, her stomach twisting at the sound of _pure, uncontrolled rage_ in the little girl's voice. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as Blair began to pace in front of the coffee table, her face contorted into an expression that no ten year old should have been capable of, her little fists swinging wildly back and forth, back and forth as she stalked.

"Blair," Eileen began slowly, trying to ignore the raw power that was building rapidly in the room, "Blair, what—?"

"_Tobias!_" the little brunette literally snarled, whirling on her and baring her teeth. Another pulse of magic hit Eileen and she found herself wondering, vaguely, if there was room in the world for someone like Blair.

"I know," was all she said in reply and she couldn't bring herself to care as several of Tobias's empty beer bottles exploded around the room.

_September, 1970_

"I don't like boys," Lily said the Saturday after her first week of school, scowling at the pile of muggle workbooks that had once again taken up residence in the corner of her room.

Blair blinked, "What?"

"They're—they're—," Lily groaned as she apparently struggled for the right words, "They're just _stupid_."

As she didn't exactly have experience in the matter and thus no opinion, Blair merely stared at Lily's profile, her head cocked slightly to the side. The redhead spun to her after another moment of glaring, spreading her arms with meaning.

"Do you know what I mean?" she asked.

"Er…" Blair shook her head.

Lily stared at her a moment, her expression a confusing mess, before she fell back onto the pillow behind her. "Blair, I mean, haven't you noticed how—how _immature_ they all are?"

Blair wasn't sure she was in any position to judge people on maturity, especially those of her own age, so she stayed silent again, watching her friend as she twisted a bit of her comforter and bit her lip.

"I mean—," Lily continued resolutely, "if they like a girl, you'd think they'd find a way to show her that didn't involve pulling hair."

There was an awkward pause. Blair ducked her head uncomfortably and made an uncommitted noise of agreement.

--

Two days later, standing the middle of Flourish and Blotts and staring at a display of books on Arithmancy, Blair sensed someone behind her and whirled.

The boy from her first trip to Diagon Alley—Abraxas Malfoy's son, she couldn't quite remember his name—appeared to be studying her from a few feet away as he leaned casually against a shelf stuffed full of books on Charms. Blair swallowed hard, as he had about two feet on her height wise and was adorned in what were undoubtedly some of the most expensive robes money could buy. He looked good in them too, the black satin contrasted vividly with his pale skin and hair, his eyes were brought out by the silver lining on his collar and sleeves. She'd forgotten—or perhaps hadn't realized—how much older he was than her the first time they'd met. He looked to be about sixteen now and clearly, he'd grown to be more like his father.

His thin lips curled into a smile as their eyes met.

_Lucius_, her mind supplied helpfully.

"Miss—Blair, was it?" he asked softly, his voice pitched so low and filled with such—such intensity, she supposed, though it did nothing but make her uncomfortable, "My, you're almost of Hogwarts age, aren't you?" That grey gaze slid from her face to her shoes and the hairs on the back of her neck rose in warning.

"Yes," she replied, fighting to keep her voice even. She wasn't sure where Eileen had gone, she'd disappeared within moments of their entering the shop and Blair hadn't seen her since, and she wished there was some way she could let her mother know that she was needed, and _quickly._

Lucius made a humming noise in his throat and stepped closer.

"It will be interesting," he said softly, "next year, I mean. Me, a sixth year. You, a first year. I'll take you under my wing, if you want."

Somehow, the offer didn't seem nearly as comforting as it probably should have been. Blair slid backwards slightly and her back was suddenly pressed into the table that held the Arithmancy books. Lucius's smile grew a fraction of an inch.

"Are you afraid of me, Blair?"

_Yes._ "No," she replied against her better judgment and lifted her chin defiantly. The blond chuckled darkly.

"Bravery," he said coldly, "I like that."

Something in his voice suggested that he actually didn't like it at all and Blair's fingers moved against her will, sliding from her side to her back pocket. They wrapped around the handle of her wand and, though she wasn't quite sure what she planned on doing with it, it offered a strange sort of comfort. Lucius continued to stare at her, a dark, almost hungry expression in his grey eyes, and Blair braced herself.

"Blair."

She nearly jumped out of her skin as her mother slid into view behind Lucius, looking first at her, then at the boy who had somehow closed the distance between them to less than a foot. Eileen's eyes hardened dangerously as Lucius turned to smile at her.

"Mrs. Snape," he greeted politely, but there was a hint of mocking hiding beneath his words. Eileen's lip curled.

"Lucius," she replied through her teeth before turning her attention entirely to Blair, "We're leaving."

She nodded immediately, but moved passed Lucius as slowly as she could, worried that moving quickly would give the impression of fear. He stared at her the entire time and, when Eileen finally reached out and grasped her hand, another one of his small, dangerous smiles curved his lips.

"It was nice to see you again, Mrs. Snape, Blair."

Neither of them replied as Eileen dragged Blair from the shop.

--

She didn't confront her daughter about it until after they returned home that evening. Tobias was out with his girlfriend—or whatever the blonde harpy was to him—and the quiet between them as they perched on the couch of the sitting room was getting uncomfortable.

Eileen sucked in a breath, "About today—," Blair's face drew in on itself and she had to swallow a lump in her throat, "the Malfoy boy didn't—didn't threaten you, did he?"

"No," was the flat reply. But those little fists were clenching tightly on tiny knees.

"What did he say?"

"Offered to take me under his wing."

This was said shortly, but a feeling of dread swept through Eileen none the less. She remembered, vividly, the look in those black eyes the day Blair had first confronted her about Tobias's affair. She could see, without much effort, her daughter in green and silver. And if Lucius Malfoy was _anything_ like his father—

"Blair—," Eileen began weakly, her stomach churning horribly. No, Lucius being his father's son wasn't the problem. The problem was—

"Mum."

The problem was Blair. Blair and the fact that she was, without a doubt, her mother's daughter.

Eileen reached out and took both of the little girl's hands in her own.

"Stay away from Lucius Malfoy," she said as firmly as she could under the circumstances.

"I know," Blair whispered in reply.

_January, 1971_

"Happy birthday, Lils!"

Blair had never been so horrendously uncomfortable in her entire life.

Lily giggled and blushed, "Thank you, everyone!"

Sitting at the dinner table with the Evans family was one thing. Petunia glared, sure, and Mr. Evans asked uncomfortable questions about wizardry. But still, it was tolerable. She didn't feel—didn't feel _isolated._ And now—

Now she just hated every single bloody muggle alive.

Five neighborhood children—all muggles—were sitting around the table with her and Lily and Petunia, while Mr. Evans cut a spectacular, frilly white birthday cake that had the words, "Happy Eleventh Birthday, Lily!" inscribed across its top in pink frosting, and Mrs. Evans hovered around, occasionally taking a photograph with a camera that blinded Blair with its flash. They were all talking, giggling and, most importantly, making a conscious effort of leaving Blair out.

She'd known, of course, that this would happen. She wasn't stupid, her father had his reputation, her mother was gaining one of her own—the words _recluse_ and _just as drunk as her husband_ had been thrown around in supermarkets and the post office and on the stupid sidewalk—and Blair couldn't help but agree with half of what was being said. Her mother wasn't a drunk, but she rarely left the house anymore and when she did, it was out of absolute necessity. She was _depressed_ and had good reason, however, and it had taken all of her self control not to lash out at the ignorant muggles and their judgmental mutterings.

Still, Blair's mood was not improved when she was offered the last slice of cake. Nor did the smirk that Petunia tossed across the table help. She was tired, she was frustrated, and she just wanted to get out of that room—that _house_—as soon as possible.

One of the neighborhood kids, a boy with an attractive face and glossy brown hair, laughed so hard he spat out a bit of cake and only laughed harder when it landed right on top of Blair's piece. She scowled darkly across the table, her temper slipping, and a glass of juice that had been sitting six inches from the edge of the table slipped and fell to the floor.

There was an awkward pause, during which Mr. and Mrs. Evans exchanged nervous looks, Petunia looked torn between malicious amusement and anxiety, and Lily stared at the large purple stain that was now forming on her mother's once pristine white rug. The muggle kids looked horrified, but it was obvious they thought it an accident and were looking at one another guiltily. Blair put her plate down, carefully avoiding meeting the eyes of any of the Evans', but the next second, Lily had her arm and was dragging her from the room.

--

Lily tugged Blair into the downstairs bathroom and locked the door behind them.

When she turned to her friend, the first thing she noticed the downcast of her eyes, the slump of her shoulders. Her face was hidden by her long black hair, but Lily didn't have to see it to know it was drawn with guilt.

She took a deep breath, "Blair—"

"I'm sorry."

Lily blinked and black eyes rose to hers.

"I'm sorry," Blair repeated, "I'm sorry and I should have controlled myself."

There was a pause. They stared at each other.

"It's alright," Lily said quietly and she saw the tension she hadn't even noticed leave the brunette's shoulders immediately. She couldn't help but chuckle slightly at this, "I don't blame you," she added lightly, "After all, if Tommy had spit on _my_ cake…well."

Blair was smiling now, in a small, shy sort of way. She reached into her jeans pocket, the barest hint of a blush staining her cheeks, and tugged out what appeared to be a small, square piece of parchment. She held it out with obvious nerves, averting her eyes when Lily cocked her head and reached out to take it slowly.

"Er—," Lily turned the rough paper over in her hands, "What is it?"

Blair put her hands behind her back and Lily got the powerful impression that she was twisting them, "It's called _Instant Note_. It—well, if you write on that bit," she reached back into her pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment that was identical to the one she'd given Lily, "then it'll show up on mine. And if I write something, it'll appear on yours. I—I saw it in Diagon Alley and—I dunno, your birthday was coming up so I asked Mum if I could get it for you."

A rather warm feeling spread through Lily's chest. She and Blair didn't see each other as often as she would have liked during her school year and she found that she missed her friend when days and often weeks went by between their visits. But this gift would certainly make things better. A grin lit up her face and she stepped forward, pulling the startled Blair into a tight embrace.

"This way we can talk during the week," she said excitedly when they parted, clutching the parchment tightly, "Brilliant, Blair! Thank you!"

Blair smiled again, but this time there was a hint of triumph in the expression.

"We're both eleven now," she said quietly.

It took Lily a moment to understand what she was talking about, but after a brief hesitation, she returned the almost secret smile whole heartedly.

"Yeah," she agreed, "We're both eleven."

--

_April, 1971_

_Five months!_

Blair, who had been reading a book on simple spells her mother had gotten her for her eleventh birthday, glanced at her _Instant Note_ in time to see Lily's message form. Unable to stop the slight grin, she grabbed the parchment and a pen.

_I know. It feels like forever._

She watched impatiently as her ink faded into the paper and then leaned back, staring blandly at the upper right corner of the yellow wall across from her. She wondered vaguely who had picked out the color scheme for her bedroom and decided that whoever it had been hadn't known her at all.

_But still, _Lily scrawled back, _it's better than a year. I absolutely loathe math._

Blair snorted. She could picture it: the redhead sitting in arithmetic, surrounded by muggles and being taught things that wouldn't help her in the slightest at Hogwarts. She still couldn't understand why Mr. and Mrs. Evans insisted upon it; it wasn't as if _grade school_ would help Lily become a better witch.

_Don't blame you. Adding and subtracting have nothing on Transfiguration._

There was a long pause between this statement and Lily's reply. Blair stared at the parchment with a furrowed brow, willing her friend to respond. She was dying of boredom cooped up in her house, especially lately, as her mother had taken to locking herself in the basement and working from dawn until well after sunset.

_Sorry, _came Lily's handwriting almost seven minutes later, _the teacher was looking at me oddly. I wonder what she'd say if she took this from me and started getting notes about magic from you._

Blair laughed out loud at this.

--

_June, 1971_

_Tap._

"Pass the coffee," Tobias ordered. Blair rolled her eyes and complied with magic, just to spite him. He gazed at the pot for a long moment after it landed on the table before reaching out to grasp the handle slowly, cautiously. As if it was diseased.

_Tap. Tap, tap, tap._

Hung over Tobias, she'd noticed, was much less confrontational than drunk Tobias. He was almost the same person he'd been when _she'd_ been a toddler. And despite how distant the two of them had been even then, Blair found she preferred this side of him immensely.

_TAP._

"What the bloody hell is that infernal racket?" her father hissed, spinning to stare at the kitchen window, which had been _tapping_ incessantly for the past few minutes. Blair glanced up as well, and froze.

There was a large barn owl hovering outside, clutching a large envelope in its beak and staring at them imploringly.

Tobias was gawking, his mouth only_ slightly_ open, so she took control, rising to her feet and crossing to the sill. Her mother had already shut herself in the basement for the day and all of her magical mail was delivered to her there anyway, so this letter could only be meant for her. _Hogwarts_, she thought, fighting the delighted grin that was threatening to curl her lips, _it must be._

She threw the window open and the bird glided inside; depositing the letter on top of the plate of scrambled eggs Eileen had provided them with before vanishing down the stairs, before settling itself on the back of the chair Blair had abandoned. Tobias continued to stare, but Blair immediately pounced on the envelope and smiled eagerly at the seal.

A lion, a badger, an eagle, and a _snake_.

_Hogwarts._

She tore the letter open; breathing rather shallowly for someone who had known this was coming.

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class; Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock; Supreme Mugwump, International confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Miss Snape,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find a list of all necessary books and equipment enclosed. The term begins on September 1__st__; we await your owl no later than July, 31__st__._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

Tobias was staring at her and she was quite sure she was grinning like an idiot.

"What?" he demanded, shooting a nervous look at the owl that was still perched, undoubtedly waiting for Blair's response, on her chair, "What does that bloody letter say?"

She simply shrugged, before going in search of a pen to write out her acceptance.

--

_It finally came. I have less than two months until I get out of this house. Part of me doesn't want to leave my mother, but at this point she'll just stay in the basement doing whatever it is she does down there once I'm gone. Not that Tobias will notice, he's always off with that blonde._

Blair sighed and put her pen down on the desk, shutting her diary with a _snap._

Her family hated each other. It wasn't resentment, or jealousy, or fear. It had nothing to do with petty arguments, or disagreements of any sort. The love had been lost between them, or at least, between Eileen and Tobias. And Blair had never much cared for him at all. But it had evolved, perverting itself even as they limited their interactions and spoke impersonally over dinner. There was no word for it now, other than _hatred. _When had it happened? When had they gone from being occasionally awkward and mildly content to tense and miserable? And, more importantly, was, as Tobias seemed to believe so firmly, it _her_ fault?

_Blair?_

She noticed, for the first time, that her _Instant Note_ had been activated. Perking up slightly, she reached out to pull it to her, smiling at Lily's handwriting.

_Yes? _she replied.

_I got it! I got my Hogwarts letter!_

A weight she hadn't noticed before left her shoulders. She hadn't realized how worried she'd been that she'd been wrong, that her instincts had fooled her, or let her believe what she'd wanted to believe. Seeing Lily perform magic had been one thing, but this, having the confirmation, was relief like she'd never known before. Blair rested her left cheek on the desk beside the parchment and scrawled: _Brilliant._

--

_August, 1971_

Eileen was not in the best of moods.

Tobias hadn't come home the previous night, something he'd done occasionally before, but somehow it hurt more this time. Maybe it was seeing Mr. and Mrs. Evans, so clearly and disgustingly _happy _together, that had finally driven the point home. She scowled, carefully averting her eyes as they held hands and smiled at one another, and caught Blair staring at her in a way that suggested reluctance and, worse, _pity_. She stared back a moment before forcing the most painful smile she'd ever given onto her face.

"Off we go," she said with forced cheerfulness, and began to herd the Evans' and her daughter towards the Leaky Cauldron, "Diagon Alley will be absolutely mad this afternoon, we want to get our shopping done early."

The muggles followed dutifully, but Blair sped up, leaving Lily with her parents to walk beside Eileen. She bit her lip; the girl was too perceptive and, not for the first time, she knew she was about to be confronted.

"Mum," Blair cast her a quick glance, "Are you alright?"

"Of course," Eileen mumbled, as then Evans crowded up behind them and they entered the small, dingy pub. She gave her daughter a look that ordered silence. Blair's expression turned defiant for a fraction of a second before she broke eye contact and fell back to walk beside Lily.

The innkeeper, Tom, a kindly old man that seemed not to have aged between the first time Eileen had visited Diagon Alley and now, smiled and waved from the bar and several witches standing nearby stopped their conversation to eye the newcomers with obvious disdain. _Purebloods._ The vaguely familiar faces and the aristocratic features gave them away. Eileen simply stared back, her face a blank mask, as she led the now whispering couple and their awe-struck daughter through the pub and out into the back alley. Blair was standing close to her again, but this time her eyes were on the back door that had just swung shut behind them. Eileen watched her for a moment, wondering with a small amount of worry what she had made of the reactions the group of witches had had to the Evans', but her expression was completely inscrutable.

"Blair," she said firmly, simply to interrupt her from whatever thoughts were churning in her head, "open the gate, please."

Her daughter's mouth opened slightly in a look of mild shock and Eileen stared her down under the excited and utterly _bewildered_ gazes of the muggles beside them. Even Lily looked slightly confused as Blair, after a moment's hesitation, drew out her wand and, holding her mother's eyes, began to count up the bricks from the small trash bin.

"Two to the right," she murmured out loud before striking the stone with the tip. There was an extended pause, during which Mr. and Mrs. Evans exchanged quizzical looks, and then the stones began to shift loudly, grinding against each other as they moved aside to reveal the cobbled street beyond. Lily's eyes opened wide with excitement and she took several excited steps forward before the arch had opened fully, prompting both Eileen and Blair to reach out and each catch an arm. Their gazes hadn't left one another yet and there was something odd lurking behind her daughter's, a strange mixture of challenge and resignation, as though everything she'd been dreading, yet expecting, had happened. She wondered, vaguely, if she'd inspired that look. Blair finally looked away when Lily tugged free and started up the road, nearly bubbling over with excitement.

"You didn't tell me it was like this!" she squealed as Eileen, Blair, and her parents rushed to keep up, "I've never seen anything so—," she giggled, "so _magical._"

Eileen couldn't help but smile.

Blair echoed the expression and caught Lily's hand to slow her down.

--

_September, 1971_

"Did you pack your books?"

Eileen was straightening her sweater for the tenth time since they'd gotten on the platform. Blair rolled her eyes.

"Of course, Mum," she grumbled moodily, "Asking thousands of times won't change the answer."

Her mother smiled weakly, "I know," she licked her fingers and Blair had to duck one final assault on her already properly groomed head, "Blair, I just—" she trailed off, averting her eyes.

Beside them, Lily and the Evans' were saying their goodbyes. Mrs. Evans was crying, Petunia was scowling, and Mr. Evans was grinning. Suddenly, strangely, Blair wished she'd said a proper goodbye to Tobias, rather than the careless, "I'll see you on holiday," she'd thrown over her shoulder as she'd left the kitchen for the last time that morning. She frowned and turned to grab the handle of her trunk.

"Blair," Eileen began again, her voice softer this time and she was forced to look back, once more, into her mother's big, sad eyes.

"I'll miss you," Blair said firmly, before the woman could continue. She received a cracked smile in response.

"I'll miss you too, love," Eileen whispered and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Blair turned back to the train and a bit of steam from the engine swept by, casting a strange curtain between the two of them. She swallowed hard and tried to ignore how utterly final it felt.

Lily was suddenly at her side and smiling, though Blair could see her own sadness reflected in her big, green eyes.

"Off we go, then?" she breathed and the redhead nodded.

"Off we go."

--

A/N: See what I mean? This chapter got SO LONG and I felt like the further I went, the rougher it got. And no matter how hard I tried to smooth it over, it just refused to be, well, smooth. I suppose that came from the choppiness, but it was more an overview than an actual chapter, so what can you do?

Anyway, I know, I'm such an evil person, dropping you off at the platform like that. But I promise, we're a-going to Hogwarts next chapter, even if it drives me completely insane while I do it. So get ready, because it's finals week and I'm going to have a lot of time on my hands because, ladies and gentlemen, I don't study. Oh yeah. So please review, because you know you're awesome like that. And I'd appreciate it and all. Thanks!


	8. Chapter 8

Alright. Hogwarts.

Are you ready? I'm _so_ ready.

_September 1__st__, 1971_

Blair and Lily found a compartment near the middle of the train.

Lily was buzzing with nervous excitement. After Blair levitated their trunks up into the luggage racks with a spell she'd found in _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1_, the redhead couldn't sit still. She fluttered around their tiny space, speaking rapidly about the platform and the witches and wizards and the scarlet steam engine and the owls and the toads and—

"Lily," Blair said flatly, sitting in the seat closest to the window and eyeing her friend with a mixture of exasperation and amusement, "Maybe you should sit down."

Lily giggled shrilly, "Yeah," she agreed and sank down onto the seat across from Blair, "Maybe."

They were quiet for a long moment and Blair sighed, resting her head against the cool glass of the window. She'd woken up that morning feeling rather ill and fixating on one thought: Hogwarts would change her life completely. She'd be away from Tobias and his infidelity, from her mother and her almost contagious depression, from the muggle neighbors who looked at her with judgment and disdain. All the things that had bothered her, upset her, infuriated her; she would be separated from them for _nine long months_. The thought of the freedom was almost intoxicating. And yet—

Blair cast a quick look at Lily.

Not all of the changes would be good.

The compartment door slid open.

Blair glanced up, broken from her thoughts, while Lily jerked away from her seat to greet the new comer. It was a small boy, obviously a first year like themselves, with scruffy brown hair and sharp, amber eyes. He smiled weakly and his gaze flickered over Lily briefly before settling on Blair—and _staying there_, much to her discomfort. There was something strange about, _behind_ those eyes. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on, but was more aware of than even the nervous twittering of the redhead across from her.

"Hello," he said in a hoarse, tired voice, "Can I sit here? Everywhere else is full."

"Of course," Lily replied, her voice much higher than normal. He turned his smile on her, but Blair couldn't shake the feeling of that _stare._ If she hadn't been following his eyes, hadn't watched them focus on her friend rather than on herself, she'd swear he was still looking directly at her.

The boy moved into the compartment, dragging his trunk with him a bit awkwardly. Blair edged sideways, pressing her side into the window, and watched as he began to struggle with his luggage; heaving it up onto the seat beside her and shooting a frustrated look up at the rack above him. Lily kicked her in the shins then and, with a soft noise of annoyance, Blair turned to glare at her, only to receive a meaningful look in return. It took a moment, but those green eyes got the point across well enough.

Grimacing, Blair reached into her jacket pocket to pull out her wand. The boy had pushed his fringe back from his face and had put his free hand on his hip as he glared between his trunk and the rack above him, obviously looking for the easiest way to get it up there. She cleared her throat a bit awkwardly and once again, those amber eyes fixed on her.

She lifted her wand a bit and forced herself to meet that gaze, "Let me," she murmured and flicked it, muttering, "_Wingardium Leviosa,_" and watching with satisfaction as the boy's mouth fell open at the sight of his trunk levitating up into the rack and settling itself neatly beside her own.

"Oh," he said faintly, "Brilliant."

Blair didn't reply, she merely shoved her wand back into her jacket pocket and turned to shoot Lily an _are you happy now?_ look. The redhead was smiling triumphantly and seemed to have gotten a hold over her nervous energy.

"I'm Lily Evans," she said, shifting slightly to reach her hand out to the boy. He smiled again and shook the proffered hand.

"Remus Lupin," he murmured and sat down beside Blair.

Instantly, the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She still wasn't sure why, but there was something about this boy's—this _Remus Lupin's_ presence that put her on edge. Every instinct she had was practically shrieking in warning and, as he turned to her and held out his hand for a shake, it took everything she had to lift her arm and even more to force herself to touch him.

His skin was rough and his grip powerful. Their fingers wrapped around each other and the moment seemed to hang heavily between them. Now that they were closer, she became aware of how pale he actually was, of the dark circles under his eyes and—was it her imagination going overboard, or were those scars crisscrossing over his face?

"Blair Snape," she heard herself say neutrally. The suspension broke and their hands parted.

Blair looked back at Lily, who's eyes were darting between her and Lupin oddly, and then glanced at the cage sitting beside her. The Evans' had purchased her a beautiful barn owl during their trip to Diagon Alley and, as she cast around for something to say to break the awkward silence, it occurred to her that, as far as she knew, Lily hadn't named it yet.

"Have you thought of a name for your owl?" she asked and again, the even tone her voice had taken on surprised her.

The redhead blinked, "Oh," she looked towards the owl herself, "No, no I haven't."

All three of them gazed quietly at the bird for a long moment.

"It's a girl," Lily said, "I want it to be a pretty name."

Blair hummed in the back of her throat. Lupin shifted beside her.

"What do you want the name to mean?" he asked. Both girls glanced at him questioningly.

"Mean?" Lily repeated, "Er. Perhaps something to do with the sky? Or flying?" She paused, looking back towards the owl and frowning.

Lupin cocked his head, eyeing the bird as well. "Well," he began slowly, "I was reading last night and came across a name that meant sky. It was also for an owl—it belonged to the famous potions master, Belenus."

Blair could feel her mouth opening in a rather unflattering way, both for herself and for Lupin. "You know Belenus?" she heard herself ask in an incredulous tone. The boy turned to look at her again, a slight, shy smile sliding onto his face as he nodded. She was surprised; she'd read plenty in her near infinite spare time at Spinner's End and the _only _reason _she_ knew of the famed Irish potions master was her potions mistress of a mother. "Oh," she said, her voice quieter now. They stared at each other for another long moment and Blair knew full well he was sizing her up just as much as she was him.

"Er," Lily cleared her throat awkwardly, "What—what was that owl's name, then?"

Lupin broke his eye contact with Blair and turned to gaze at the barn owl again.

"Azure," he muttered. Blair glanced at Lily in time to catch the beaming smile that had appeared on her face.

"Azure? I like it."

--

The three of them chatted for the next hour and a half.

Lily would have thought things were going decently—Remus was obviously intelligent and Blair obviously respected that in him. They seemed to be getting on well and, even when a lull in the conversation came and she was forced to ask a question to bring about another topic, there was no awkward silence, only a friendly one. But still, when Lily spoke and Remus gave her his attention, Blair would watch him almost warily out of the corner of her eyes. She'd noticed it the moment the boy had first entered the compartment; she'd been delighted at the opportunity to make a new friend, while her brunette friend had tensed up almost instantly and her gaze had become guarded, suspicious, even hostile. Lily longed to ask Blair what the problem was, but with Remus there it was impossible to get an opening and, seeing as Blair hadn't turned openly aggressive, there really was no point.

Besides, Blair wasn't the only one who seemed on edge. Remus had been glancing at the brunette appraisingly every so often too, though he was more subtle about it. Or rather, Lily just knew Blair, almost as well as she knew the back of her hand, and perhaps that was why it seemed so much more obvious when her friend was doing the staring.

Around three o'clock, the compartment door slid open again and a pleasant looking plump witch stuck her head in.

"Anything from the trolley?" she asked kindly and Lily leaned forward to catch sight of a cart laden with sweets in the hall. Grinning, she leapt to her feet and scrambled to the door, peering over the selection. Blair stood as well and stepped around Remus, giving him more berth than was really necessary, and leaned around her shoulder.

"Some chocolate frogs, please," she said, digging in her jacket pocket for some coins. Blair had introduced Lily to the wonderful world of wizarding candy during their trip to Diagon Alley in August and she couldn't wait to get her hands on more. She bought some chocolate frogs as well, along with Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Licorice Wands, and Peppermint Pasties.

Remus waited politely for the girls to finish before standing to purchase two chocolate frogs of his own. The plump witch bid them a cheery farewell before sliding the compartment door shut behind her and a comfortable silence fell as the three of them started in on their candy.

Barely five minutes later, just as Lily opened her mouth to make a comment on a rather good lemon flavored bean she'd just discovered, the door slid open again. She was looking at Blair, who had glanced up immediately at the sound, so she saw the look of fear and disgust that flickered across her face before her friend threw up that horribly familiar passive mask. It was that same mask that appeared every time Tobias came up.

"Hello, Blair," came a slow, silky voice from the doorway, "I've been looking all over for you."

There was a heavy pause. Remus was looking between Blair and the doorway, his expression suddenly quite serious, and she could see the way his fingers had tightened into fists over his knees. The brunette herself seemed to be waiting for something, though Lily couldn't possibly begin to imagine what, and then—

"Lucius," Blair replied neutrally and, to Lily's shock, seemed to shift closer to Remus.

Lily looked up at the door then to find a rather handsome, yet strangely dark looking blond boy leaning casually against the frame. He was much older than the three of them, he looked to be about sixteen and he already dressed in his Hogwarts robes, bearing green and silver in his tie and crest. _Slytherin_, Blair had told her once, and rather shortly. Those were Slytherin colors. The boy—Lucius—stared down his long, thin nose at her friend, his grey gaze alight with something strange, something that made her stomach twist and her heart speed up. Blair stared back, her black eyes expressionless. But Lily couldn't shake the sight of that fear that had been there just moments before.

"It's been a year," Lucius commented offhandedly. Lily glanced again at Blair, just in time to see her hand move surreptitiously to her wand.

"Yes," she said flatly. The boy's thin face split into a dangerous smirk.

"Blair, my dear Blair. Mummy's done a good job on you, hasn't she?"

That did it. Lily flinched at the way Blair's upper lip curled away from her teeth, at the sudden, violent light that appeared in her eyes. "You don't know _anything_ about my mother," she hissed, her voice so horribly different from its usual, controlled tone that it sent a frightened shiver down her spine. Lucius, however, evidently saw no cause for concern and simply continued to smile.

"I know she's a blood traitor and a fool," he said lazily, "and that _you_, girl, will learn your place soon enough. Especially," he ran a shrewd eye over Lily and Remus and his voice dripped with delight when he continued, "if you continue to associate yourself with the type of people that got your darling mother disowned in the first place."

Blair stood up, aggression written in every line of her body. Remus moved immediately in response, rising and catching her wand arm in one swift motion, keeping it pressed firmly to her side and his eyes locked on Lucius'. The Slytherin's lips were still curled, but now it looked more like a snarl than a smile, and he stared between the two of them for a long moment before shaking his head.

"You, Miss Snape, are making a grave mistake."

"Get. Out," Blair said through her teeth, but made no effort to pass Remus' blockade. Lucius' grey gaze lingered on her for a fraction of a second before he took a step backwards into the hallway.

"Enjoy your delusion while it lasts, girl," he breathed, before shutting the door with more force than was necessary. The glass rattled in the tense silence he left behind him.

Blair wrenched herself free from Remus' grasp the moment Lucius was gone and threw herself back down in her seat, her expression drawn and disturbed. There was another beat, during which Lily looked first, helplessly at the grave look on Remus' face and then at Blair's hunched frame, and then the boy spoke, his voice low and hesitant.

"That was—Lucius Malfoy, wasn't it?"

Lily watched her best friend, watched her entire face twist in revulsion at the sound of the name. Blair nodded once, jerkily, her eyes locked on the window, sightless to the landscapes that were speeding by. Silence settled a moment more and Remus cleared his throat.

"He's dangerous."

"You think I don't know that?" Blair snapped, shooting him an ugly look before turning back to the passing scenery. But Remus would not be deterred.

"You would have hexed him if I hadn't stopped you," he said evenly, "And then what? You would have _lost._"

Blair's lip started curling again and Lily saw her hand twitch towards the pocket her wand had been hidden in again, "You don't know what I'm capable of," she said under her breath. Remus stared at her for a second before lowering himself into his seat once more and turning to stare tiredly at Azure.

"And neither of us know what _he's _capable of," he murmured.

Blair flinched in reply.

--

Her mood had been completely destroyed. Not that it had been good in the first place, but still. Lucius Malfoy had ruined her day entirely.

When the train began to slow later that evening, there had been nothing but awkward conversation between Lily and Lupin since the blond had disappeared. Blair had been completely silent during this time, which had felt like a small eternity but had actually been around two or three hours at the most. They'd changed into their Hogwarts robes (Lupin had excused himself to the bathroom and Blair had been forced to throw a murderous look at Lily to keep her from asking any unpleasant questions) fifteen minutes before and, as a magically amplified voice drifted through the train, telling them to leave their possessions on board because they would be brought up to their rooms later, the three of them drifted into the hallway to join the throng of students already pushing to the doors.

Hogsmeade station was very dark and very crowded when they finally managed to leave the train after it halted. Blair felt Lupin's hand twisting into the back of her robes as they moved through the crowd and, instead of shoving him off like she probably should have, she followed his lead, wrapping her fingers firmly around Lily's wrist to keep them all together.

"Firs' years!" a gruff voice was calling over the heads of the students, "Firs' years, o'er here!"

Blair turned to look past Lupin's shoulder and caught sight of the largest men she had ever laid eyes on. Everything about him was wild, from his hair, to his moleskin overcoat, to his movements as he drew the first years to him. She felt her mouth open slightly and the boy beside her turned as well, drawing in a sharp breath at the sight. The giant's enormous beard waggled as he called for them and his black eyes met those of Blair's and the corners wrinkled slightly as he smiled at her. He beckoned and she and Lupin immediately started in his direction, following their fellow first years through the mass of older students to reach the man. Lily's wrist was shaking in her grasp. Blair too was having trouble keeping herself steady.

Lupin's hand slipped from her robe to her own hand. She twisted their fingers together despite herself as they came within a foot of the giant, as the boy's dark presence offered her a strange sort of comfort as they stood in his shadow. The man smiled around at the group of first years that had gathered around his waist. Up close, Blair realized abruptly, it was revealed that he was actually much younger than he seemed.

"Name's Hagrid," he said cheerfully, "Keeper o' Keys and Groun's here. I'll be taking yeh up ter the castle."

He abruptly turned and, lifting one gigantic hand to hold his lantern above their heads, he started off down a path that lead away from the rest of the school. Blair nearly stumbled as the throng of first years moved to follow him as one, but Lupin's grip on her hand kept her upright and they started down the forest trail in silence.

After around five minutes of walking, they reached the shore of a lake and several small boats. Hagrid stopped at the water's edge and turned to eye them all sternly.

"Four ter a boat. In yeh go."

Immediately, Blair and Lupin pulled Lily, who was apparently in some form of shock, into the nearest boat to them. Blair settled herself beside the redhead, holding her gently in place, while Lupin sat across from them, looking pale and drawn. She was quite sure she was echoing his expression. Her stomach had deserted her ages ago.

They were alone for another moment before another boy stumbled into the boat after them, looking quite unsteady himself. He was rather plump and his sandy hair was plastered to his forehead by his excessive sweating. He twitched nervously as Blair and Lupin looked at him. Lily was too busy staring around in a way that could only be described as paranoid too really notice they had gained a passenger.

Lupin offered his hand, "Remus Lupin."

The boy eyed the hand as though it were a highly poisonous spider.

"P-Peter Pettigrew," he stuttered weakly.

"Brace yerselves!" called Hagrid, who had a boat entirely to himself.

With that, and a small jerk, they launched.

--

When Hogwarts finally came into view, Lily was quite sure she was going to die of shock.

It was an enormous castle, standing tall and imposing atop a dangerous ledge overlooking the lake they were currently crossing. Its windows sparkled vividly against its black silhouette, reflecting sparsely in the dark water beneath them. Beside her, Blair nudged her with her elbow in a reassuring way. Lily leaned into her friend's comforting warmth and glanced at the two boys across from them, taking in the way Peter was staring at the school with terror and Remus was smiling gently at her. She tried to smile back, but got the distinct feeling that she only achieved a grimace.

All too soon the boats docked in a strange sort of underground space and Hagrid, with many gruff words and slight shoves, herded them up a rank and damp tunnel onto the sweeping castle grounds. Lily tried to catch a glimpse of the area, but suddenly they were standing in front of a large oak door and Hagrid was knocking.

On either side of her, Blair and Remus held her up. Behind her, she could feel Peter Pettigrew's entire body shaking.

The doors swung open and a rather severe looking witch with a tight bun and square spectacles stuck her head into the night, eyeing the first years shrewdly.

"Firs' years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid announced, sweeping a hand over their heads. The witch nodded shortly and stepped aside.

"Thank you, Hagrid," she said, "I'll take them from here, go join the feast."

The giant nodded and stomped through the large doors passed her. Professor McGonagall eyed them all for another long moment before turning sharply.

"Follow me," she said over her shoulder and began to walk briskly into the castle.

They were lead into the largest room Lily had ever laid eyes on. Her eyes darted around, but there was simply no way to take it all in with the short amount of time they were given. As McGonagall lead, she caught sight of an enormous marble staircase, of a hall beyond the one they were in that held what looked to be the rest of the school, and a vast, tiled floor beneath their feet. McGonagall lead them into a side chamber that was apparently attached to the hall the other students were waiting in.

"You will wait in here," Professor McGonagall said sternly, "and you will behave. I will fetch you when we are ready for the Sorting, which will take place in the Great Hall in front of your classmates."

_The Sorting_. Blair hadn't been very specific about this part. All she'd said was that they were divided into houses based on their strengths, weaknesses and personalities. She hadn't seemed to keen to speak about it, which hadn't worried Lily at the time, but now made it easily the most terrifying prospect yet. She swallowed and turned to where Blair and Remus stood side by side, each surveying their surroundings with guarded interest, a remarkable amount of space between them considering the fact that they'd spent the majority of the trip into the castle holding hands. Lily would have been surprised by this, had she not been so close to vomiting.

Just behind her two friends, Peter Pettigrew was twitching again. She felt his pain.

There was a tense silence among the first years as they waited, but after about five minutes, the door McGonagall had left through opened again and the witch stuck her head in.

"Follow me, please. Keep in an orderly line."

Lily fell in behind Blair, with Remus behind her. They trooped into the Great Hall.

The first thing she noticed about the room was how _unbelievably _vast it was. There was literally too much to take in this time, from the sea of black robes and hats that stretched out for what appeared to be a mile away from them that made up the student body, to the enormous, arched windows surrounding them, standing dozens of feet tall. Blair stopped and turned to face the four house tables and Lily followed her lead best she could, envy of how remarkably calm her best friend was. That black gaze was directed upwards and shining with something akin to delight.

"Look," Blair ordered out of the corner of her mouth. Lily did.

Her gasp was lost in the mutters of the students below them and the whispers of their fellow first years. The ceiling looked entirely absent and she got the distinct impression that the Great Hall opened directly to the heavens, revealing a breath taking view of the starry, clear night sky. A crescent moon hung lazily above them, bathing the hall with pale light that augmented the hundreds of torches around them.

"It's charmed," Remus said on her other side, "to echo the night sky."

So there was a ceiling. Lily had never imagined such magic, even after discovering she was a witch.

Professor McGonagall was moving forward now, holding a stool and a rather decrepit looking hat. A hush fell over the students as she placed them, hat on stool, in front of the first years and tugged a large scroll from within her emerald robes.

Then there was a silence. Everyone in the hall was staring at that hat expectantly. Lily did too.

And then, to her shock, one of the tears near the hat's rim opened wide, resembling a mouth. It began to sing in a raspy sort of voice:

_I've bet you've heard_

_Many a tale about_

_That Hogwarts Sorting Hat_

_That I'm mad as a batter_

_Or strange as a hatter_

_Or simply just a twat._

_But say what you will,_

_Because I know my stuff_

_And you know it too,_

_Because I was born to do this_

_And I rarely miss_

_Even the smallest part of you._

_I'll sense that you're brave _

_For Gryffindor_

_Or perhaps a bit cunning_

_And Slytherin._

_I'll see that you read_

_Or smile like you breathe_

_For Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff._

_So put me on, kids_

_And don't expect a quiz._

_Because your answers won't matter_

_And yes, I'm mad like a hatter._

_And I'll place you in a jiff._

The students erupted into applause. Blair was clapping and her lips were twitching slightly and Lily could feel the slight smile on her face as she followed everyone's lead. Remus chuckled slightly under his breath.

"When I call your name," McGonagall said over the dying cheers, "Come forward and place the hat on your head."

Lily's stomach dissolved.

"Abbott, Chester."

A round faced boy stumbled from the line of first years and weaved across the raised platform to the stool. McGonagall lifted the hat by its tip and he sank down onto the seat, lowering his head as the rim of the hat settled on his hair.

There was a moment of silence and then—

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

The second table from the right exploded with cheers as they Hufflepuffs welcomed their newest member. Chester Abbott waited for McGonagall to tug the hat off his head before teetering off to join them, finding a seat in the middle of the crowd. Lily sucked in another breath. That hadn't seemed so bad.

"Aubrey, Bertram."

A squirrely looking boy moved forward, twitching all the way to the stool. McGonagall eyed him for a moment before placing the hat on his head.

"RAVENCLAW!"

The far right table erupted this time and Bertram Aubrey wobbled to join them.

"Black, Sirius."

A strange buzzing noise filled the hall then and it took Lily a moment to realize that it was whispering from the student body. It seemed every eye had turned on an aristocratic looking boy, who strode from their crooked line exuding confidence. He made quite the show of sitting down on the stool and McGonagall dropped the hat on his head.

They sat like that for quite a while. Sirius seemed relaxed and even began swinging his legs as the hat took its time sorting him. But then, after what felt like at least five minutes—

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Gasps burst from the four tables. Lily noticed that the far left table began to hiss, almost as one, as they glared at the now strangely triumphant looking Sirius as he strutted forward to join the Gryffindor table. The red and gold clad group seemed almost wary, but a few were grinning in the same, strangely victorious way that Black was and made room for him to sit. Beside Lily, Blair made a strange noise in the back of her throat, as though she was torn between amusement and anxiety.

"A Black in Gryffindor," she heard her friend mutter, "Ridiculous."

The sorting continued. Avery, William became a Slytherin, but Bagman, Otto was off to Gryffindor. Then a set of fraternal twins, Alecto and Amycus Carrow, became Slytherins as well.

Diggle, Dolohov, Edgecombe—

"Evans, Lily."

Lily felt as if her entire body had dissolved in that moment. She simply couldn't make her legs move.

Blair's hand snaked behind her and pushed. "Go," she urged under her breath, "Hurry."

She felt herself stumble forward. Every eye in the room was on her, she could feel them pressing in from all sides. She managed to make it to the stool without tripping, though how she would never know, and sank down onto it, trying not to look at the hundreds of students who were watching her every move.

Instant darkness enveloped her as the hat settled on her head.

There was a moment of complete silence and then a soft voice sounded, causing her to jump nearly a foot in the air.

"Ah. Let's see, then, Miss Evans."

The hat was _talking to her._

A soft chuckle seemed to vibrate on her skull, "Yes, I speak. Now, let's see. Intelligent. Quite intelligent. But I don't think Ravenclaw would be good for you. You are very kind, yet quite brave."

There was a beat.

"Ah."

An image of Blair popped into her head. She wasn't sure if the hat had brought it on, or she had done it herself.

"Your best friend?" the voice questioned.

_Erm?_ Was she supposed to think the answer? _Yes?_

"I see. She is coming, is she not?"

_Yes._

"I understand. But still, I cannot help but place you in—"

It broke off a moment. Lily wondered if hats could second guess themselves.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

--

Blair was quite sure she was going to faint. Or worse, though she couldn't think of what that would be at the moment. Perhaps vomit.

She'd known it was coming. Well, not specifically _Gryffindor_, which made the situation that much worse, but she'd known that Lily would never fit into the Slytherin house. Beside her, Lupin shifted closer, as if sensing her devastation. She ignored him. He was no Slytherin either, world hardened though he obviously was. It didn't matter that she rather liked him, that he'd saved her skin on the Hogwarts Express. Before the night was over, he'd hate her on principle.

So what was the point?

There was none.

"Fenwick, Benjy."

Lily probably didn't understand the implications. That was Blair's own fault, though, as she'd been the one who'd neglected explaining the house politics to the redhead. And now her best friend was sitting in a sea of Gryffindors, looking quite relieved and happy, and Blair was alone and just waiting for the knife to fall on her life.

"Hookum, Daisy."

There was no stopping it now, after all. She knew full well who and what she was and it was _not_ a Gryffindor.

"Jones, Gwenog."

Not a Ravenclaw either. And the idea of her being sorted into Hufflepuff was laughable.

"Kegg, Roland."

Blair found herself wishing, irrationally, that she had been a muggle born. Because that would bloody guarantee—

"Lestrange, Rabastan."

It wasn't fair. Why did she have to be so dark?

"Lupin, Remus."

She shut her eyes. She didn't want to watch.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Bile rose in her throat.

"McKinnon, Marlene."

What had she done to deserve it? Nothing. It was sodding Tobias, and her stupid genes, that had turned her into—

"Nott, Theodore."

And if sodding Malfoy thought for _one second_—

"Prewett, Gideon."

She wanted to throw up.

"Pye, Augustus."

Lily caught her eye and smiled excitedly.

"Rosier, Evan."

Beside Lily, Lupin offered her an apologetic look.

"Shacklebolt, Kingsley."

He knew. Of course he knew. Anyone with eyes could see that she was a—

"Snape, Blair."

There was a pulse, it ran through her body and left her standing there, shaking and stubbornly pushing tears away. For one, wild moment, she detested her mother and her stupid Prince blood.

Lucius Malfoy was smiling.

The stool was very hard, though she couldn't remember how she'd gotten there. She looked quickly at Lily as McGonagall lowered the hat and instead found herself meeting Remus Lupin's tired amber eyes.

The rim shut her in darkness.

It was strange, considering how hard her heart had been pounding, how sick she had felt, and how much she'd longed to flee, if only to escape what was coming, when the calm washed over her at the hat's touch. She knew it was probably magic and most likely an allusion, but she immersed herself in it none the less, relishing in the way her breathing, which had been rapidly approaching hyperventilation, evened out.

"You know what's coming," a quiet voice said in her ear.

She shut her eyes, despite the dark.

_Yes._

"For what it's worth," the hat said, "I do not relish in separating friends. Nor do I think Miss Evans will abandon you so lightly. Nor Mr. Lupin, should you choose to give him the chance."

Blair almost laughed, though none of it was funny.

_What do you know? _she thought moodily, _You are a hat._

It laughed.

"To the bitter end, it would seem you are, in fact, a—"

Knowing something was coming and hearing it were two very different things. Blair gripped the edges of the stool hard.

"SLYTHERIN!"

--

A/N: So, four things:

Yeah, Blair can sense something off about Remus. My reasoning for this is simple: Blair, despite everything, is a dark witch at her core. This, I believe, makes her more aware of a darker presence, thus more aware of a dark creature. Which Remus is, at _his_ core.

I am not a song writer. Forgive me for my awful attempt at the hat's song.

Lucius Malfoy is a nasty, nasty boy.

Yes, I did put her in Slytherin. Why? Because that's where she belongs.

So, you guys, for reals. Reviews are good and I like them. So please give them. Please, please, please.


	9. Chapter 9

Thank you so, so much for the feedback! I must admit, I was surprised that it was good…I felt like I may have gone in a direction that you readers weren't alright with, but apparently I was wrong (which is awesome)! Keep up the reviewing. It makes me totally happy.

Also, sorry this took so epically long. You see, I went on winter break and was kind of distracted. Then I got back and…I struggled with it. I just couldn't find the right direction and things with Lucius were difficult (I'm sososososo pissed at him. He's a jerk.) So know that this isn't exactly the best thing in the world—I'm not happy with it, but I simply could not see a way to make it better—and please, forgive me for all of it. Kthnksbye.

_September 1__st__, 1971_

The walk from the stool to the Slytherin table felt like one to death, as if she was making a long trek to the gallows or something equally horrific. Though, that was probably due to Lucius Malfoy's incessant staring.

Blair knew she was reckless. She knew she baited the men she perceived as powerful—as dangerous to her in some way because it made her feel like she had some microscopic form of control over the situation. And that glint in Lucius' eyes reminded her so much of drunk Tobias, with his curses and his hatred towards all things magical, that she simply could not take it anymore. The train had been one thing—she'd known she wasn't capable of handling the blond and she'd predicted (even hoped, if she was being honest) that either Lupin or Lily would step in—but this. This was the perfect stage for the perfect attack.

Malfoy lifted his hand when she drew level with him, the barest of smirks playing on his lips.

"As I predicted," he said and somehow his voice carried over the scattered applause, "You can only run from who you are for so long. Welcome to Slytherin House, Blair Snape."

Blair looked at him. She looked at his hand, his cruel smile, and his sadistic gaze. And she paused, for the barest of moments, watching an expression of surprise flit across his face. Obviously he hadn't expected it, this apparent cooperation. Blair smiled politely.

Then she promptly brushed passed his proffered hand and swept down to a free seat at the end of the table, as far from Lucius Malfoy as she could achieve without coming off as a coward.

--

Remus Lupin couldn't help it.

He didn't approve, certainly. Upsetting Lucius Malfoy twice in one day was akin to poking a sleeping dragon in the eye: one simply _did not_ do it. But still, Blair's snub had prompted a rather spectacular eye twitch from the normally controlled blond and, if the smirks from the Slytherins surrounding him were any indication, it was obvious she'd gotten to him with that tiny power play.

So Remus chuckled, because despite the obvious lust for danger that his almost-friend had, this particular risk had been rather amusing.

Lily, however, didn't see any humor in it at all.

As Strout, Miriam stumbled forward to be sorted, the redhead tried desperately to catch Blair's eye.

"That was the boy from the train, wasn't it?" she whispered frantically to him under her breath, "Is she _mad_?"

Remus wasn't about to presume that he understood Blair better than a girl who'd obviously grown up as her closest friend. There were probably things between them that they'd never shared with anyone, secrets between two little girls, shared in private places in a language only they would understand. But still, he was sure there were sides to Blair that Lily couldn't possibly recognize, let alone understand. He would even go as far as guessing there were—well, _things_, events, whatever—in her past that she intentionally hid from the redhead. It was in her eyes, he'd seen it the moment he'd walked into their compartment. Blair was as dark and experienced as Lily was bright and innocent. It was for that very reason that he'd felt so drawn to her. They were alike in that way.

Remus swallowed, letting his eyes drift away from Malfoy to where Blair sat, apparently examining the empty silver goblet before her.

"Not mad," he reassured Lily quietly. And she wasn't. Blair was simply—

A pair of black eyes rose to meet his. Lily's attention had been diverted by a boy down the table—Sirius Black—who was cheering rather raucously as Twiddle, Mallory became the next new Gryffindor. The display stole Blair's eyes for a moment as well before she looked back to Remus, her expression now one of contempt.

Her eyes dropped back to her goblet.

Remus let out his breath.

--

She managed to keep a low profile over dinner.

Her seat choice had been decent. Apparently she'd chosen the side of the table that was for the Slytherins of the solitary variety, the loners, though not necessarily outcast members of her new house. A few of them greeted each other softly, but otherwise conversation was scarce, leaving Blair to eat her meal in silence. She'd shut her brain down—thinking did _not_ seem like a good idea at the moment—and bringing her fork to her mouth was really all she could handle for the time being.

When dinner ended, prefects from each house rounded up the first years to lead them to the common rooms. To Blair's disgust, Malfoy was among the leaders for Slytherin and, as the group of them moved out into the entrance hall and towards a door on the far side, he fell into step beside her.

"I must admit," he said under his breath as the prefect at the front of the group, a tall boy called Charles Wilkes, began to explain the quickest route to the common room over his shoulder, "I underestimated you, Blair."

She didn't say anything, didn't even acknowledge his presence beside her, instead focusing on the back of Alecto Carrow's dark head, tracing the shape of the reflected torchlight with tired eyes. Malfoy waited until they passed through the door and into what was clearly the passage to the dungeons to speak again.

"You should know that I'm not the one you need to worry about," there was a smile in his voice as he continued. Blair locked her jaw and turned her attention to Rabastan Lestrange's curly brown locks, counting the prominent rivulets that fell across his shoulders. "Miss Snape, I am trying to give you a warning and, despite the undoubtedly _ludicrous_ things your darling mother told you about me, it would be in your best interest to heed it."

He didn't sound at all sincere, which was probably what prompted her to look at him. After all, a liar as practiced as Lucius would have draped his words with fake—yet horribly _believable_—concern and looked at her with big _worried_ eyes, had he wanted to trick her. And the strange, almost lazy quirk to his lips spoke not of apprehension, but of amusement.

"What then?" she hissed, curling her fingers into fists at her sides. His eyes flashed oddly in the sparse torchlight.

"Do you see that girl walking beside Evan Rosier?"

Blair turned her head slightly, glancing towards the boy in question and catching sight of a tall, slender young woman, undoubtedly a prefect, twisting her wand between two fingers lazily as she walked. She was quite beautiful, almost porcelain, and yet her face, her features spoke of an older, aristocratic heritage, a kind of darkness that hid behind her almost mild expression. Actually, she rather resembled that one boy, that—

"That is Bellatrix Black," Malfoy explained softly, "and she's probably going to target you as her new _project_."

Blair stopped walking for a beat, swinging her head to stare at the boy beside her and fighting to control her expression. _Nothing_ about the way he'd said that word had sounded even remotely good.

--

_September 2__nd__, 1971_

Lily was feeling rather befuddled the next morning.

The houses had all been separated after the Welcome Feast, which she supposed was only to be expected, but was still rather annoying. She and Remus, along with the rest of the first years, had been lead to the Gryffindor Common Room, a warm, inviting space decorated in gold and scarlet (the house colors) hidden behind a portrait of a rather fat lady in a pink dress. After being given the password—_flobber worm_—they had been sent up to their dormitories for bed. Of course, Lily hadn't been at all tired, while the rest of her roommates—who all seemed nice enough, _really_—had all been adamant on bed. So she'd been left lying awake in her four poster, staring up at her scarlet curtains and going over and over what exactly had happened that evening in her crowded head.

It hadn't been a pleasant trip down recent memory lane, especially when the very real possibility that Blair did not want her as a friend anymore reared its ugly head. When she awoke the next morning after a dreamless sleep, it had been quite a relief.

Lily had rushed down to the Great Hall for breakfast before all of her roommates had even gotten out of bed and, to her delight, found Remus at the table, chewing absently at a bit of toast and staring blankly at the Slytherin table. Blair wasn't there, she'd checked before she'd even entered the hall, and her new friend's thoughts seemed to be running along the same tracks as her own.

"Any sign of her?" she asked breathlessly, collapsing onto the bench beside him and picking up the first biscuit she caught sight of.

"No," Remus shook his head slowly and dropped his chin to his free hand, "There's no way she's left yet, either. We have to wait for our schedules."

Lily nodded as she searched for butter, "Good. I want to talk to her."

"I know," Remus glanced at her quickly before looking back towards the slowly filling Slytherin table, "but Lily, she may be difficult about talking to you."

Lily nodded again. She knew that too.

--

Blair felt rather ill the next morning.

Malfoy's warning had stuck and seemed intent on replaying itself over and over in her head. "_Bellatrix Black. She's no prefect. I doubt Dumbledore would trust her with the job if she were the only option. He obviously knows she's a sociopath."_

She had a vague idea as to what that meant and her limited knowledge wasn't good. As for why the blond had been so adamant about giving her this bit of information was beyond her: it was growing more and more obvious that the only thing he wanted her for was to add yet another follower, minion, _whatever_ to his little group.

"_She didn't appreciate your little display at the feast. If I am the Slytherin King, she is the Queen. And she especially doesn't tolerate shows of disrespect—towards either of us."_

Blair supposed it was her own fault if there was a target on her back now, she'd probably drawn it there herself with her bad attitude. She also flatly refused to be afraid of Bellatrix, something Malfoy had clearly guessed.

"_She also dislikes bravery. To her, it is arrogance at its worst."_

The problem here was Lily. The redhead would obviously make an attempt at contact soon—she was hardly the type to be ignored for long and she suffered from severe lack of patience—and when it happened, Bellatrix would undoubtedly use it as fuel for her proverbial fire. If the older girl had developed instant dislike for Blair, Lily was an obvious and perfect option for attack.

_Why_, she had asked Lucius, _why are you telling me this?_

He'd smiled rather nastily.

"_Because, girl, for all of your potential, you are young and foolish. We have to fix that."_

Standing in front of the Great Hall, dreading entering for the inevitable first breakfast, she suddenly wished she'd never met Lily. That she'd grown up thinking that boys like Lucius were handsome instead of dangerous and that Eileen was weak and pathetic instead of brave and proud. Most of all, though, she wished that Blair Snape had come to Hogwarts wishing for Slytherin instead of dreading it. That Blair Snape wouldn't have the unbearable urge to run as this Blair Snape did. And Merlin, did she want to _run_, if only for her friend's sake.

Instead, she took a deep breath and pushed her way through the heavy oak doors.

--

A/N: Yay! I got some Remus POV in there! I'm totally excited, I love everything about him.

I'm sorry this was so short. It just happened this way.

And Bellatrix is going to be very important. Watch for that.

Also, Blair's thought process through this entire chapter, mostly regarding Bellatrix, Lucius, and Lily, might seem a bit strange, borderline cowardly (especially towards the end). But, as I said, while they share a last name and a role in a story, Blair and Severus are _two different people_. And, for all his bravery, Severus was scared of things too. Even school politics (which, let's just say it, SUCK for EVERYONE.)

So, review. Like, please? And thank you. Many, many thank yous.


	10. Chapter 10

I'm glad you guys liked the chapter. This next one was easier to write (which I'm sure you could tell, what with the quick update and all) and I hope I continue to do well in your eyes. Which you should totally tell me if I am or not, via the review button.

_September, 1971_

Remus glanced up at exactly the right time.

Blair entered the Great Hall in a subtle sort of way, glancing so quickly at the Gryffindor table that had he not been looking for it, he wouldn't have seen it. She immediately moved to the Slytherin table, her bag slung loosely over her left shoulder and her robes fluttering slightly with her speed, and chose a seat close to the one she'd been in the night before. She then poured herself a goblet of orange juice and dragged what appeared to be the _Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1_ out of her bag. Remus felt a smile slide onto his face at the normalcy—for some reason, he'd expected explosions and shouting and tears (not from Blair, of course, because she wasn't the type to cry in_ public_)—and dragged a plate of strawberries towards him, looking away from Blair for the first time since she'd entered the hall and picking absently at a loose thread at the end of his left sleeve.

Just as he'd selected the plumpest, reddest bit of fruit, Lily finally noticed her best friend had entered the premises.

"Blair," she said, perhaps a bit louder than she should have, straightening her back to get a better view of the other girl over the heads of the slowly gathering students. The brunette was apparently absorbed in the book in front of her, chewing slowly on a forkful of sausage, her eyes darting back and forth over the pages. Remus swallowed—suddenly letting Lily stalk over there and demand attention seemed like a _very bad idea_—shifted ever so slightly, just in case he would be forced to grab the girl in order to stop her.

Instead, Blair glanced up just as Lily began to push herself off of the bench.

Their eyes met for a fraction of a second, but something in Blair's gaze obviously placated her, because Lily was suddenly seated again and picking at a bit of scrambled eggs. The Slytherin shot Remus a look as well, though to him she was entirely inscrutable.

McGonagall had gotten up from the staff table, along with the heads of the other houses. Remus looked away from Blair again to focus on his breakfast.

He was bloody tired and he needed some energy for the first day of classes.

--

When Professor Slughorn, the head of Slytherin house, finally reached her, Blair was finally starting to relax.

Lily hadn't done anything—for lack of a better term—stupid. Lupin had simply gazed, looking just as exhausted as she'd felt, before turning back to his food. Nothing cataclysmic had happened, Bellatrix Lestrange hadn't so much as glanced at her since she'd entered the hall—though, _Lucius_ had, the prat, for someone so _keen_ on _protecting _her from the evil forces of older Slytherin girls, he was certainly drawing a _lot_ of unnecessary attention to her—and she had found the Hogwarts cooking to be much better than Eileen's—which had been declining in quality as of late.

Of course, then the big nosed, pink faced, almost-goofy Potions Master smiled cheerfully and handed her the schedule in his left hand with a loud and almost legitimate _honk_ of, "Welcome to Hogwarts, my dear!"

The boy seated across from her—Evan Rosier—rolled his eyes spectacularly. Blair almost smiled; it was quite obvious Professor Slughorn was atypical of their house.

Her schedule looked decent to start. That day she would be attending History of Magic, double Herbology and Transfiguration. The next she would start Defense Against the Dark Arts—incidentally, the subject she was most eager to learn. Wednesday, Potions was introduced, as well as Astronomy. Thursday, Charms. It didn't seem all that bad, or even remotely difficult.

Blair glanced once again in Lily's direction, only to find her pouring over her schedule with a strange mixture of excitement and apprehension. She frowned—it would be easy for her, perhaps, but she'd also grown up with a witch.

"Bloody History of Magic," Evan Rosier muttered and she looked at him, unsure if the words were meant for her. He met her stare and his mouth twitched slightly, "I've been told it's nearly unbearable."

Blair blinked—what was this? An offer of friendship or just small talk to fill the silence?

Rosier promptly stood, effectively dashing her hopes. But then, as he lifted the strap of his bag to his shoulder, he lifted an eyebrow at her.

"Shall we?" he asked, perhaps a bit lazily. Blair's stomach felt a bit lighter and she threw up a casual expression.

"I suppose," she sighed and dragged her bag out from under the bench.

--

On the third day of classes, Lily couldn't decide if it was appropriate to laugh or to cry.

It wasn't that she didn't love it at Hogwarts—she _did_, rather a lot, actually—but she also felt ages behind the rest of her class.

The first class she'd attended was Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and they'd made the trek out of the castle and down to the greenhouses, where they'd been shown by Professor Sprout how to plant a rather nasty looking bush bearing sharp spikes in soil using large amounts of, to her absolute horror, Dragon dung. Watching it had been one thing, but actually doing it had been entirely another.

Charms the next day had been an absolute nightmare. She'd been horribly nervous when the tiny Professor Flitwick had asked them to levitate a feather with the spell Blair had been so adept at on the train, _Wingardium Leviosa, _and hadn't been able to keep her hand steady enough to actually do it. What was worse, James Potter—who was painfully cheeky and seemed to live for the expressed purpose of showing off—achieved flight in one attempt and had thrown her a rather disturbing wink as she'd gawked.

The only class that she wasn't convinced would be the death of her was History of Magic, dreadfully boring though it was. Note taking had always been one of her strong points.

And to cap it all off nicely, she hadn't even spoken to Blair, let alone had a moment alone with her, since the Sorting.

Lily was beginning to fear the worst for their friendship on Wednesday morning when, in passing, Remus—who had become something of a crutch to her and didn't seem to mind her company—mentioned that their double Potions block after lunch would be shared with the Slytherins.

"What?" she sputtered over the top of her milk glass. Remus didn't look up from buttering his bread.

"I heard Rosier talking yesterday in the Charms corridor. They have Potions the same time we do."

Lily glanced towards the Slytherin table, where Blair was seated next to Rosier and chewing absently on a bit of melon.

"Oh," she said quietly.

--

Slughorn, it seemed, was insane.

The moment he and Lily arrived in the Potions classroom—which was also the largest dungeon, to his distaste—Remus knew the class would be unpleasant at best. Not because of the teacher, but rather his _radical_ ideas.

_Radical_ in a Slughorn-partnering-Slytherins-with-Gryffindors-for-their-first-exercise sort of way.

"Ah!" Slughorn cried as the door swung shut behind them, "You two are Gryffindors, yes? Well, we're trying a bit of ice breaking today. Your name?" he asked Lily.

"Erm…" she glanced towards the rest of the classroom, where the sullen looking pair of Potter and Rosier shared a desk, as well as Black and Carrow, and Lestrange and McKinnon, "Lily Evans?"

The Potions Master beamed.

"Miss Evans, dear, go sit by Miss Carrow. And you, my boy?"

"Remus Lupin."

"Mr. Lupin, you will be partnered with Miss Snape."

Lily, who was in the process of sinking into her chair, shot a look of pure disbelief at Slughorn. Remus swallowed, carefully avoiding her eyes, and turned to the last row of tables, where Blair was sitting and looking strangely disarmed. He could feel Lily's eyes on him as he moved to join her.

"Hello," he muttered under his breath, "Nice to see you again."

Blair said nothing in reply.

Class began two minutes later, with a lecture on the difference between Potions and other branches of magic. Remus found himself wishing he and Lily could trade partners—Alecto Carrow, though rather sour looking, would not have caused so much tension. The air between himself and Blair was thick enough to cut and she seemed content to leave it that way.

Slughorn set them to making a batch of weak Sleeping Draught about halfway through the period, giving them about an hour to complete it. The directions were on the board and the ingredients in a storage cupboard at the front of the classroom, which Blair fetched without giving him a chance to offer.

When she returned, she had a rather foul look on her face, though all of the ingredients in her arms.

"What?" Remus asked before he could stop himself. They could have been friends, after all, and she didn't have to be so completely abrasive just because of _house politics_.

"I want you to tell Lily that I haven't replaced her with Rosier," Blair snarled and slammed a bottle of bat hearts down next to his forearm, "Cut those up."

He blinked and glanced at the boy in question, who was having an extremely obvious and heated argument with James Potter, apparently about the proper way to set up a cauldron. Lily was glaring, albeit subtly, at the pair as she chopped up her own bat hearts.

"I'm not so sure it's Rosier she's looking at," he said to placate her, "She's not all that fond of Potter."

Blair's expression told him she didn't buy the argument at all. She shoved a knife at him before starting in on the required newt tails violently, "Lupin, she's been giving him dirty looks all week."

Remus picked up the blade and eyed the organs in front of him, "She misses you," he stated matter-of-factly and could practically hear Blair rolling her eyes.

"You can't know that," she said coldly, "You've known her all of four days."

He smiled mildly at her, "Perhaps," he cut into the first heart, "But it's rather obvious, you would have noticed if you hadn't been avoiding her the way you have."

Blair's knife stopped mid stroke, sunk half way into the thickest part of the newt tail she was pinching between her pointer finger and thumb. There was an extended pause, though this one seemed more—more _uncomfortable_ than_ tense_. Then, Remus supposed, most would argue they were the same feeling. Here, however, was the proof that they were anything but.

Then, so softly he barely heard it—though he had a feeling his…_advantage_ was unfair and she hadn't intended for him to hear it at all—"I miss her too."

He frowned at his second bat heart. Blair's knifed started moving again.

--

Sorry I'm giving you another short chapter. I find it's easier to write smaller chunks than to tackle one, long, never-ending part. So please review, because it helps my inspiration.


	11. Chapter 11

Again, sorry for the wait.

I don't own Harry Potter, by the way.

_September, 1971_

Remus insisted that Blair still considered her a friend and that Rosier wasn't a replacement.

Lily, however, had been trying to force eye contact with the brunette since their first day of classes and, seeing as she'd been stubbornly denied all week long, thought Remus was rather full of it, to say the least.

"You don't know her the way I do," she said heatedly during dinner on Thursday, "She's not the type to be ashamed of anything, especially not who she spends time with."

Remus rolled his eyes and reached across her for a basket full of rolls, "Funny, she said the exact same thing when I told her that you missed her. About not _knowing_."

Lily glanced towards the Slytherin table, where Blair and Rosier seemed to be chatting. _Chatting._ Blair did not _chat_, at least not with people she didn't _like_. Or, people she didn't _respect._ And, in some ways, Blair's respect meant much more than her affection.

"She's allowed to have other friends, Lily," Remus reminded her gently.

She shot him a sour look before turning back to her tripe.

Lupin had stopped her in the Charms corridor that morning to tell her that Lily was becoming extremely put out with their situation. As if she hadn't noticed that herself, with all the glares during mealtimes. She hadn't realized the redhead could be so—

So _persistent_ (to put it kindly).

Blair sighed, leaning back on the large black couch she and Rosier—_Evan_, he was her friend now, she should call him by his first name—had claimed for the evening. The Slytherin Common Room was a large, dark room (or rather, enlarged dungeon) decorated in black and green and the barest hint of silver. The couches were leather and spoke of wealth and power. The rugs were rough on bare feet and even through socks, but the stone floors were worse, so it was better to wear shoes at all times. Their housemates were all talking at once, as was common in the evenings, and all at the same volume. Blair couldn't even _begin_ to concentrate on her first Transfiguration assignment.

"Merlin, it's loud," Evan muttered, flicking through their Charms work absently, "Want to go upstairs?"

That was the thing about the dorms. The girls were allowed in the boys rooms, but the boys weren't allowed in the girls. It was all rather unfair—she was more comfortable sitting on her own bed, thank you very much and Antonin Dolohov had this way of staring that lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. But still, she could feel a headache coming on and Dolohov was sitting with Walden Macnair by the fire. Besides, she had never been one for crowded places.

"Alright," Blair replied, slipping her parchment into her book, picking up her bag and rising to her feet. Evan gathered up his work and lead the way to the long corridor that lead to the boy's dorms, which branched off from the left side of the common room—the girls went off to the right. The first year dorms were the first door down this passage and Rosier held it open for her when they reached it.

Blair lifted an eyebrow as she brushed passed him and into the dormitory, but he merely smirked, so she made a beeline for his bed and dumped her bag and pile of books onto it.

"Evening, Avery," Evan said as he did the same, turning towards the only other occupied bed in the room. Blair leaned forward to get a better look at Edward Avery, who was lounging against the left post on the end of his mattress, a copy of the _Daily Prophet _in one hand and a large box of chocolates in the other.

"Evening, Rosier, Snape," the boy said softly. He was rather small—certainly the smallest of his dorm mates, but there was something about him, something that put Blair on edge. It wasn't the same as with Lupin—he had a presence, certainly, but she, inexplicably, trusted him. With Avery it was different and she was on guard. He was smiling demurely now and crossing his legs at the ankles, watching as Evan climbed onto his bed and shifted some of their school work to make room for Blair. "Did you hear about what happened in London?" he continued, watching as she climbed onto the bed and pulled the _Standard Book of Spells, Grade One_towards her.

"No," Evan said absently, dragging his ink well and quill out of his bag. Avery let the moment hang, as neither Blair nor the taller boy expressed any interest in what he had to say. Then—

"Death Eaters attacked a muggle born in Diagon Alley."

Blair looked up in time to see the expression on Evan's face freeze up. She slipped her hand from her bag, her search for parchment suddenly forgotten, and turned to stare at Avery. Her stomach was twisting painfully. Muggle born attacks? In public? What was a Death Eater?

"Did they catch them?" Evan asked, his voice strangely muffled. Avery was looking at his paper once more; apparently now that he had their attention, he was bored with it.

"No," he said and the corners of his lips turned up into an odd, awkward sort of smile, "No way to, yeah? That's what Disapparation is for."

Blair looked between the two boys and what felt like hundreds of questions nearly burst from her lips. Her fingers twisted into the comforter beneath her, but Evan's eyes remained locked on Avery.

"That's the second in three months."

Something about the smaller boy's smile was sinister; Blair just couldn't put her finger on what.

"They're getting bolder," Avery said quietly and lifted the newspaper to hide his face.

Lily had forgotten about the _Instant Note_. She'd packed it, of course, but she'd assumed that, once she and Blair were at Hogwarts, they'd be able to talk all the time. It wasn't until the first Friday of the term that she found it, crumpled at the bottom of her trunk beneath some socks. A wave of resentment for the other girl washed over her as she eyed it; Remus had said he was going to talk to Blair about her behavior, but as far as she could tell nothing had changed. Apparently the boy was wrong; Blair wanted absolutely nothing to do with—

She flipped the paper open, almost absently, and froze.

Words, dry words, words that looked more than a day old, were scrawled hastily across the upper right hand corner of the note.

_Library, Saturday, 5:00. Come alone._

Lily let out a slow breath.

Oh.

Alright then.

Blair wasn't sure that Lily was going to come.

There were so many reasons not to. She'd been ignored for a week, for one thing. And there was every chance that she wouldn't look at the _Instant Note_ until after the prescribed time and thus not know that there was a meeting at all. Or, and Blair wouldn't put this past Lily, as she did have quite the temper, she would just ignore the request out of spite.

But, as she hid in the Advanced Potion section of the library, peering between the books at the large, open space at the library's center, she caught sight of a short, remarkably red head.

Lily was looking around with suspicion, as if she didn't expect Blair herself to be there. The Slytherin bit back a sigh of frustration—this _house_ thing was really starting to inconvenience her—and slid around the corner of the shelf, waving one hand to catch the other girl's eyes and beckoning. Lily seemed to hesitate a fraction of a second—the wariness was written in every line of her body—but then started forward and, when Blair backed into the aisle she'd originally been hiding in, followed her lead.

There was a long moment—a painfully _awkward_ long moment—and they stared at each other, both apparently unwilling to break the silence. Blair certainly was. But something in that quiet was getting to her and, after about thirty seconds, she cleared her throat and broke eye contact, gazing at a large, gray tome on the shelf just over Lily's right shoulder instead of the girl herself.

"Lily."

"What do you want, Blair?"

It was said flatly, but that anger that Blair had expected (and feared) lurked under the words, so soft and so potentially dangerous that she nearly lost her nerve.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, "So sorry. For everything."

Then she squeezed her eyes shut, because even looking away, her peripheral vision was so aware of the look on Lily's face. She just couldn't take it and she was suddenly so sure she was about to be rejected and—

"It's okay," Lily said slowly, "I mean, I don't really get this whole house thing, but Remus tried to explain it to me and…and I think I might understand."

Lupin. Again, she bloody owed him.

"I was trying to protect you," Blair continued, because _might understand_ just wasn't good enough, "Both of us, actually. People like Lucius Malfoy…Bellatrix Lestrange, they just wouldn't allow—"

"I know," Lily cut her off, almost impatiently. Blair couldn't be sure, but she swore the redhead sounded _disappointed_ in her. What could have brought that on, she had no idea.

"Alright," she said carefully, "Then—then I have something to tell you. Something important."

She knew her voice had changed. Lily's expression mirrored it, going from closed off to mildly concerned as she spoke. Blair swallowed hard and forced herself to meet those green eyes.

"What?" Lily asked, her nerves evident.

Lily had disappeared ages before. Remus had a feeling he knew where. Or rather, who.

He had to admit: though he'd made it clear to Blair that Lily was extremely upset, he hadn't expected her to act. He'd thought that maybe she'd send a letter or something, given him a note to give her. But a one on one meeting, in person, in _Hogwarts_? He hadn't thought her so brave. Reckless, maybe, but not brave.

Clearly there was more to Blair Snape than temper and stiff silence.

"Oi, Lupin."

Remus glanced up. He'd chosen an arm chair in the corner of the Common Room that afternoon, both to do his homework in solitude and to wait for Lily's return in solitude. Sirius Black, it seemed, did not respect those obvious plans.

"Hello, Sirius," he said mildly in greeting. While he got along with the other boys in his dorm—Sirius and James Potter, the boy from the boat Peter Pettigrew and Frank Longbottom, he hadn't fallen in with their little group. Though, Frank hadn't really either, as he had some second year friends and, as Remus had learned through observation, his best mate, Gideon Prewett, was in Hufflepuff. Their friendship had survived the house division; though, Remus had to admit, relations between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor were far better than those between Slytherin and Gryffindor. But Sirius and James had already formed some sort of bizarre bond by the time they had reached the dormitory on the first night and Peter had already begun to follow the two of them around with something akin to hero worship, so Remus hadn't really seen a place for himself. Besides, Lily was remarkably easy to talk to and Blair was…well, she was Blair and he found himself enjoying the small moments they shared, despite her occasional bad attitude.

"Where's Evans?" Sirius didn't bother hiding the fact that he was staring at Remus' almost completed homework with intense jealousy.

"Off somewhere," Remus replied evenly, "I can give her a message, if you like." He could already imagine Lily's reaction to a message from Sirius Black. He had to bite back a smirk.

"No," Sirius said a bit too quickly, shooting a glance off over to the right where, Remus discovered upon looking, James and Peter were watching from a table, "No, I wasn't looking for her," he paused to clear his throat, rather dramatically in Remus' opinion, "Actually, James and I were wondering if you could show us that spell we learned in Charms the other day—the levitation thing. You were brilliant and we…we need it for something."

Remus lifted an eyebrow. He'd only lived with them for a week, but if he had to guess, Sirius and James' interest in _Wingardium Leviosa _would not lead to anything good. Because, even though they'd only been at the school itself for a week, the two were already forming remarkable reputations as, for lack of a better term, pranksters.

Sirius peered at him through big, gray eyes.

"Please?" he said with a layer of fake innocence that nearly made Remus laugh.

"Alright," he said, rolling his eyes for good measure. Sirius grinned and clapped Remus' shoulder as he gathered his books and stood.

Perhaps getting involved in a James-and-Sirius prank wasn't such a good idea. Considering his…ailment, he was in a very precarious situation in regards to his place at the school and getting a detention for levitating a piece of cake and dropping it on Filch's head (or, knowing James and Sirius, something _much _worse) wouldn't help matters. But Dumbledore had brought him here for a reason. He'd said it himself, during the meeting he'd had with Remus and his parents.

"_You deserve a chance to be young, Remus."_

Lily could handle Blair on edge. Her eyes darted a little too much and she had this habit of pacing fast enough to make an observer dizzy, but it was manageable. Something that she could control, most of the time. But this steady, controlled Blair, however, was someone Lily had never understood.

"There are things about the wizarding world you don't understand," she began softly, slowly, holding Lily's eyes with frightening intensity, "Things you probably can't imagine right now, actually. But you need to know, and I probably should have told you ages ago, that not all wizards like _muggle borns_."

There was a hard silence. Blair was staring at her, her expression smooth, her eyes cold, her mouth drawn into a tight line. She was worried, that much was obvious, and the way she'd said those words—_muggle born_—had lifted the hairs on the back of Lily's neck.

"I," she said weakly, trying to hold herself upright against the quaking of her knees, "I don't…don't understand—"

Blair had always been older than her, had always known more. For the first time, Lily wasn't envious of this. "There are people in this world that will hurt you, given the chance. They're called Death Eaters and while there are none _here_, necessarily, Avery said something that—"

Someone moved in the next aisle over. Blair turned her head sharply, her jaw clenching as she stared hard through the books, trying to catch sight of whoever was there. Lily took the momentary reprieve to control her breathing—it'd been growing more and more erratic as Blair spoke—and she twisted her hands in front of her waist, knotting her fingers together and squeezing when those black eyes turned back to her.

"Watch the older Slytherins," Blair said, her voice barely above a whisper at this point, "Some of them…"

There was another shift on the other side of the shelves. Blair let out a harsh breath and took a step closer to Lily, reaching out to grasp her shoulders tightly, almost painfully.

"Some of them are mad," she finished hoarsely.

A/N: Alright, I know I brought the Death Eater idea into the story quickly, but here's my reasoning. Blair is in Slytherin and most of those kids are the children of Death Eaters. Voldemort was rising while the Marauders and Snape were in school and, while most of the students were probably ignorant to how bad it was, I'm sure that the members of Slytherin house, even the young ones, were more aware. And especially since Avery's father was a known classmate and friend of Lord Voldemort, then yeah, I'd say he'd know some stuff.

So, please review. Things are going to speed up after this chapter.


	12. Chapter 12

Alright, are you guys ready for the montage? I'm ready for the montage.

As always, thanks for the reviews.

_October, 1971_

Time began to blur, for her anyway.

Blair had this nagging in the back of her head as she passed from class to class, meal to meal, day to day, as if she was forgetting something as she grew accustomed to her new life at Hogwarts. It always seemed to be on the tip of her tongue, but the answer never made it passed her lips and she didn't understand why she couldn't shake the feeling, right up until midway through October, when the answer arrived via owl and was dropped into her morning porridge.

Evan looked up at the brief commotion, raising an eyebrow at her from across the table as she extracted the small, now-damp envelope from her breakfast. "Letter from mum?" he asked lazily and Blair's stomach clenched.

Her mother. How the bloody hell had she forgotten her _mother_?

Her hands shook as she opened the letter:

_Dear Blair,_

_I haven't heard from you in ages, though something tells me this is a good thing. You don't have to tell me what house you were placed in; I already know, though it would have been nice to have confirmation. I'm not angry, I just miss you. I trust you haven't had any problems with the Malfoy boy—something tells me you would have written me if you had—and I'm sure I don't need to remind you that he is dangerous. I'm sure two months exposure to him has shown you that._

_I don't mean to sound so detached. Your father is working long hours and I have been busy with my potions. I suppose I should go out into Diagon Alley more, get some fresh air. I advise that for you too, the Hogwarts grounds are beautiful, though I'm sure you've been warned not to stray too far. The lake should be lovely this time of year._

_Your grandmother Clarice will be coming for Christmas and she says she would like to see you. If you do not want to come home, however, that is your choice. Send word of your plans before November, so I can come up with a suitable excuse for her. _

_Until your response, know that I love you. I will see you when I see you._

_Love from,_

_Eileen_

--

Remus had begun to spend an awful lot of time with Potter, Black and Pettigrew.

Not that Lily was jealous or anything—she'd been his friend _first_, but as he'd said of Blair, he was entitled to others. She just didn't like _them_ (more Black and Potter than Pettigrew); they were juvenile and had absolutely no regard for the rules. And she didn't like sharing with them, especially when they interrupted a study session claiming that they needed Remus' aid with a _noble endeavor. _Noble her socks, the day Black and Potter _didn't_ prank someone would surely be a signal of the end of the world.

Though, she had to admit, Remus' friendship with his dorm mates had prompted her to do the same with her own. Most particularly, Alice Hawkins and Marlene McKinnon were quite nice and Lily enjoyed the time she spent with them, studying, insulting Black and Potter (though Marlene had a strange fascination with the former's hair), laughing, playing a wizarding game that the two of them had introduced her to: Exploding Snap. They were becoming good friends to her. But still, they weren't Remus and they certainly weren't Blair.

But even Blair, despite their inability to hold any real conversations, had been making a remarkable effort in the past few weeks. She and Lily had taken to writing back and forth on the _Instant Notes_ for at least an hour a night, talking about mundane things such as classes and homework. Lily often complained about Potter and Black to her, though Blair, after their conversation in the library, had never once talked about the Slytherin Common Room or any of her housemates. Lily didn't see any reason to ask, either. If there was a problem, the brunette would tell her and they both knew it.

_Blair?_

It always took less than a minute. Lily wondered vaguely if the other girl carried the parchment around all day, waiting for contact. She certainly did; she often stared at it while professors lectured, waiting.

_Hello Lily._

--

_Mother,_

Blair paused, biting her lower lip as she surveyed the parchment before her.

She'd gone to the library to write the letter. The Common Room had gotten quite stuffy and Bellatrix Black's voice seemed to be digging itself into her temples—despite the fact the older girl had set up her nightly camp on the opposite side of the room from Blair, she managed to make her words heard by everyone in the vicinity. Blair supposed it could be called a gift, this strange ability of most purebloods to command the attention of a room. Lucius had it too. And they both knew exactly how to use it.

_I haven't had any problems with Lucius._

The thing that had bothered her about her mother's letter was how—how impersonal it had felt. How completely unemotional.

_I'm more concerned about Bellatrix Black, as Lucius actually __warned__ me about her. She hasn't done anything, though, and I've avoided her, so don't worry._

Blair, for the first time since leaving for Hogwarts, could feel the guilt welling up again. She'd been so distracted by Lily's absence, by her blooming friendship with Evan and even her occasionally awkward, yet strangely endearing partnership with Lupin that she'd forgotten about the life she'd left behind. How she'd accomplished it was beyond her, as a normal person couldn't simply push strained dinners, drunken shouting matches and physical violence from their mind all that easily. But somehow she'd done it, which once again made her wonder—

_Lily's in Gryffindor. We haven't had much chance to talk, obviously, but we have the _Instant Notes_, so it's not like we've completely lost contact._

Was she normal?

Blair pressed her free palm into her left eye. She hadn't realized how exhausted she was until that moment.

_Mum, I have to ask you something. It's important. I need you to answer me honestly._

Several older Hufflepuffs passed her table then, giving her odd looks as she pressed her hand further into her eye. She could feel another massive headache coming on.

_What do you know about Death Eaters?_

--

_November, 1971_

Her daughter's first letter home arrived on the first of the month. After reading it, Eileen sat and stared at it for hours, the commissioned potions sitting forgotten and boiling on the wooden table beside her. Everything around her seemed strangely still.

_What do you know about Death Eaters?_

She couldn't remember the last time her heart had pounded like this.

--

"Tell me when to put the newt tail in."

Lupin always insisted on bloody talking while they worked. Blair ground her teeth and pulled out her wand to clear snail entrails from the cutting board before her.

"Blair, I'm serious."

He was also dreadful at potions, which really did _not_ help matters. She was too impatient and he was too determined to be friends. Their partnership, despite being one of the most civil in the classroom—Evan and Potter were currently trying to cut the same newt tail with two _very_ sharp knives and she was willing to bet money that one of them would lose a finger before the end of it—was also one of the most ridiculous. They were too similar, too different, too—too—

It simply did not work, in her humble opinion. Although it seemed that Lupin, with his mild smile and the calm that offset her frustration, was determined to prove her wrong.

"Blair—"

"Just put it in!" she snapped. He dropped it in the cauldron, turning their Pepper Up potion just the right shade of puce.

"Excellent, Mr. Lupin, Miss Snape!" Slughorn cried from the front of the classroom, before noticing that Potter was bleeding and Evan was developing a remarkable black eye. Lupin chuckled. Blair rolled her eyes.

--

James and Sirius were planning to prank Lucius Malfoy.

"You're completely mad," Remus told them calmly over the top of his book on counter curses. Dumping puss filled asparagus on a bunch of stuck up, fifth year Ravenclaws was one thing. Charming flaming cat dung to infiltrate the shoes of the Slytherin Prince was entirely another. The pair of them exchanged smirks and James pushed his glasses up his nose.

"Perhaps a bit," he conceded, "But it's going to be a bloody riot."

Remus lifted an eyebrow, "So you know what you're going to do to him then?" he asked mildly. He actually was curious as to what the brilliantly devious minds of Sirius and James had come up with for Lucius Malfoy. But he was not going to help. Absolutely not. Sirius scratched the back of his neck and shrugged.

"Not yet. Work in progress, Remus mate. Don't suppose you'll help?"

He stared blankly at them for a long moment. They stared back innocently. He returned to his reading.

"Absolutely not."

James let out a breathy laugh, "Yes well. When you get bored, we'll be in our usual spot."

Remus rolled his eyes.

--

_Blair,_

_Who told you about Death Eaters? Whoever it was, stay away. They can only be bad news. You never answered, are you returning for Christmas or not?_

_Love, _

_Eileen_

--

"What's that?"

Lily jumped about a foot off of her chair. Remus caught her shoulder to keep her from toppling to the ground in the wake of her awkward landing, looking apologetic.

"Sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you," he slid into the seat next to her, his eyes on the _Instant Note_. Blair's message back was beginning to form with slow, steady strokes of nothing. He looked sort of pale, she noticed suddenly, and there were large shadows under his eyes.

_No. He's bloody awful at potions._

"Er," she said uncertainly and a slow, strange sort of smile spread over Remus' face as he read. "Well, you see—"

"This is how you and Blair communicate?" he sounded so remarkably innocent, but there was suddenly a quill in his hand. Potter and Black were rubbing off on him. Lily swallowed hard.

"Well, yes, but—"

"Who are you talking about?"

She opened her mouth stupidly. Was he joking? He had to know they were talking about him (who else would Blair say was dreadful at potions?) Remus blinked solemnly, despite that smirk. "Remus," she began, her voice faint, and he laughed.

"Don't worry, I'm not angry," he waved the quill under her nose, "Mind if I write something?"

Lily let out her breath. What did it matter if Remus knew about the _Instant Note_? He was her friend, he was _Blair's_ friend (reluctant though she was to admit it) and who was he going to tell, anyway? It wasn't like they were breaking rules or anything; they were just trying to be—discreet—about their friendship.

And there was absolutely nothing wrong with that.

She pushed the parchment towards him, "Have at it."

--

_Dearest Blair. I may be awful at potions, but I am also your partner. We need to work together. Hope all is well over in the Slytherin Common Room. Your FRIEND, Remus Lupin._

Blair stared blankly at the _Instant Note_ for a moment, then snorted loudly.

Bloody Lupin. He thought he was so charming.

"Something amusing in your notes, dear?"

It took everything she had not to jump. She'd been so wrapped up in her conversation with Lily she hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings—something, she realized now, that was unbearably stupid in the Slytherin Common Room. A shadow cast itself over her shoulder a moment later and she folded the parchment in her hand, crushing it into her lap and glancing up to face her audience with what she hoped was a neutral expression.

Bellatrix Black leaned casually against the top of her armchair, her gray eyes glittering unnaturally in the firelight. Blair's stomach then decided to take up residence in her throat.

"Not at all," she grumbled, "Just a letter from my mum, is all."

The older girl dragged her fingers over her lips in a strangely unsettling way, her gaze drifting to and fixing on the _Instant Note_. Blair wanted so badly to flee—or at least stand, to give herself an easy getaway, but something told her that showing Bellatrix weakness in that moment would only be bad for her in the long run. She pressed her back into the seat cushions and twisted her neck uncomfortably to hold the other's gaze properly.

"A letter from mum," Bellatrix cooed, "Mummy, who married a muggle."

Blair dug her nails into her palms. _Don't get angry_. She'd thought that Bellatrix had forgotten about her. She hadn't even glanced at her since the Welcoming Feast, after all. Of course, it had lured her into a false sense of security. _Don't get angry._ She was such an idiot.

"Yes," she said flatly and tried to swallow her stomach back down where it belonged.

Bellatrix hummed softly, staring for another long moment, and then pushed herself away from the chair. She put her hands on her hips and smiled crookedly.

"Well then," she said lightly, "That's_ lovely_, isn't it?"

And then she turned and walked away, her steps steady, straight and controlled. Blair swallowed hard once more and looked away, catching Lucius' eyes as she scanned the room for Evan.

He nodded, once and quickly, before turning back to his book.

--

Remus loved having friends, he did. But when Sirius asked him where he was going that night, he was quite sure he was going to throw up.

"Er," there was no explanation, was there? Putting on your clock at eight o'clock, saying you're going for a stroll and, oh, you need to be alone? Never mind the curfew, that sort of behavior was just bizarre.

Sirius lifted an eyebrow.

"My mum's sick," he blurted out, sounding too rushed and too awkward, "I'm going to see her tonight."

There was a strange sort of silence and for one, terrible moment the look on Sirius' face was one of disbelief. Then:

"Oh man, mate," the taller boy grasped his shoulder, "I hope she's alright. See you tomorrow."

Remus let out his breath, "Yeah," he grumbled, "See you tomorrow."

--

_December, 1971_

_I will be coming home for Christmas. We need to talk._

_-Blair_

--

It was a Saturday and she and Evan were sitting in the library.

"—I'm going to teach you," he was saying, "_Everyone_ needs to know how to play wizard's chess."

"Right," Blair leaned back in her chair and stared moodily at her Transfiguration notes. McGonagall had been piling the work on in response to the imminent break, which she had to know was a mild form of torture because _no one_ was capable of focusing on _anything _this time of year, "I just need to finish this sodding essay. I've only got ten inches."

"I've got seven," Evan eyed her parchment with jealousy, "I'm running out of things to say. There's only so much you can write about turning a mouse into a goblet. There's no way I can fill five more inches."

Blair tossed her quill up on the table and rubbed her eyes, "I need a break. When's dinner?"

Evan checked his watch, "We've got an hour and—"

She waited a moment for him to finish the thought, toying with a frayed edge of her sweater, but looked up when she received nothing but silence. Evan was staring at the entrance to their little alcove, his expression suddenly one of powerful dislike. Blair turned in time to see Potter realize that they were there and shove an extremely questionable bottle back into his robes.

"Rosier," he snapped, his lip curling back in an unpleasant way, "What're you doing?"

"What're _you_ doing?" Evan snarled back, already on his feet, his hand slipping to the pocket she knew he kept his wand in. Potter caught the movement too, and mirrored it.

"Don't try me, Rosier," the Gryffindor said softly, his face twisting unpleasantly. But the animosity between them was too great and Evan's mood had already deteriorated and it was clear that neither of them was going to let this chance pass them by.

Blair hesitated a fraction of a second and both boys made to tear out their wands.

Potter fired a pinkish jet of light; Evan used what sounded like the Jelly Legs jinx. Both dodged, Potter towards the table they'd been sitting at, Evan towards a precarious looking pile of books to the left. The spells struck walls and shelves with painful sounding cracks. Blair lurched to her feet.

The two of them froze, halfway through casting a second hex, when she leveled her wand at Potter, mostly because she'd also grabbed Evan's arm and pushed it out of aiming range. A tense silence fell and they all stared at each other, breathing heavily in the wake of the adrenaline, their wand hands shaking with uncertainty. Then Potter, to Blair's surprise, chuckled slightly.

"What's this, Rosier?" he asked mockingly, "Need a _girl_ to fight your battles for you?"

Evan's reaction was instant; Blair didn't even have time to be properly insulted. He wrenched his arm from her grasp and made for Potter, his wand slipping from his fingers and his magic evidently forgotten.

"Evan!" Blair made a wild grab for him, nearly tripping over a stray chair leg, and caught hold of his waist, "Evan, don't be a sodding idiot!"

"Stay out of it!" Evan actually shouted, throwing himself forward and trying to peel Blair's fingers off of him at the same time, "Damn it, Blair, leggo!"

"WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON HERE?!"

Again, all three of them stilled, Evan and Blair locked in an awkward, one sided embrace and Potter with his wand pointed at them and his expression torn between amusement and anxiety. Madame Pince, the infamous Hogwarts librarian, had finally appeared, her glasses slipping down her prominent nose and her eyes bulging unpleasantly. Blair had never seen a pair of lips turn so white with rage.

"You—," Madame Pince pointed at Potter, "You lower that wand! And you!" she rounded on Blair, "Let go of that boy, now!"

Blair and Evan separated hastily, their legs tangling for a moment and nearly sending them both crashing to the ground. Pince towered over them all, nearly hyperventilating in her rage, her eyes flicking from one guilty face to another.

"Never, in all my years at Hogwarts, have I seen such—such blatant _disrespect!_ You should all be ashamed of yourselves!"

Blair nodded jerkily and Potter muttered, "Sorry," under his breath.

"Detention!" Pince continued as if he hadn't spoken, "Tomorrow night! You will dust these shelves to perfection, do you hear me?"

"Yes," they chorused. Evan exhaled harshly through his nose.

"Get out of here," the librarian stepped out of the alcove entrance and jabbed her finger towards the door, "Go back to your houses. I do not want to see you in here until after the holidays, am I _clear_?"

"Yes," Blair whispered. The boys were silent.

Potter fled immediately and Pince lurked while Evan and Blair gathered their books. They trudged from the library under her severe gaze and, once the door was closed behind them, he stopped and grabbed her arm.

"Thanks," he said softly, "If she'd walked in on me punching him, I'd have a week's detention with Filch."

Blair swallowed hard. Her entire body was still buzzing with adrenaline, excitement, dread. She felt light headed, distracted, frantic. She couldn't think straight.

"No problem," she replied breathlessly. Evan eyed her for a moment, something akin to concern flicking over his face, before slipping an arm about her shoulders.

"C'mon," he muttered and lead her off towards the Common Room.

--

Eileen had a powerful headache.

Tobias was passed out on the couch, a bottle of whiskey trailing from his hand onto the carpet. There would probably be a stain, but she couldn't quite bring herself to care. Magic would get it out and she had two more weeks before she had to make the house presentable for Clarice.

She grimaced. Blair had sent a letter to say that she was coming home and that the two of them needed to talk. _Talk._ Mentions of Death Eaters, whispers of attacks and now her little girl, coming home from the front lines, wanted answers. It was Eileen's worst nightmare come true.

The worst part was that she _didn't_ have the information Blair wanted. She'd heard enough on the streets of Diagon Alley, of course, and she'd renewed her _Daily Prophet _subscription out of worry. But that probably put her knowledge on the same level as her daughter's—pieces, assumptions. Neither of them _really_ knew what was going on. The only thing Eileen was certain of was that none of it was good. People were becoming paranoid, she'd been receiving more and more orders for antidotes and protective potions as of late, and she wasn't sure those fears were all that unfounded.

The doorbell rang while she was halfway through her tea break. She had several potions bubbling in the basement, but all of them could wait and Tobias certainly wasn't going to drag himself off the couch to answer the door. Eileen wandered down the front hall, gripping her tea in one hand and pushing her hair out of her face with the other. She knew she looked dreadful, but again, what did it matter? She had no one to impress.

She opened the door.

Her tea cup slipped from her fingers and shattered at her feet.

--

A/N: Damn, that got long. Montage, you guys. I love me some montage. Hope you all like it. Drop a review on your way out.


	13. Chapter 13

I am so sorry that this took so long. My personal life had me losing sleep, so I figured I had to deal with that before I tackled a new chapter.

Thank you for the reviews. I do not own Harry Potter.

Also, my dividers apparently vanished from previous chapters? I just looked at them and said, "Hey, where the hell are my lines?" So hopefully these dividers stay where I put them. Let me know if they don't.

_December, 1971_

Less than half of her peers had chosen to go home for the holidays, so Blair had no problem finding a compartment to keep to herself.

Evan wasn't going home. He'd said he needed more time away from _dear old dad_. Blair hadn't questioned—the look on her friend's face suggested that Rosier senior was not unlike Tobias when it came to _parenting_. And hell, had she not needed to see Eileen, she would have put off returning home until summer, same as him.

Lily was with her two new friends, McKinnon and Hawkins. Blair had seen them on the platform and felt a remarkable rush of bitterness in the pit of her stomach. It was funny, how jealous Lily had been of Evan and now how resentful she herself was of the two new girls. Even with the _Instant Note_, their friendship was different now. More mature, and at the same time, immature. And it wasn't that Blair didn't recognize it for what it was becoming—they were dangerously dependent on one another, growing up the way they had—it was that she didn't want to acknowledge it.

Not until she knew how to deal with it. How to _fix_ it.

She'd also noticed Lupin with Pettigrew, though the former had looked painfully bored. Blair wasn't all that surprised—Pettigrew was a leech, clinging to his powerful friends so desperately it was embarrassing to watch. She would not have been surprised if the short, chubby boy didn't have an original thought in his round head. Why Potter and Black, as conceded as they both were, tolerated him she would never understand. Lupin's reasons, however, were obvious. The boy was simply too nice. Too nice and too full of pity.

Blair levitated her trunk up to the luggage rack and sank down into the window seat. Her left temple collided painfully with the cool window and her eyes slid shut. Somehow, even when she was alone like this, she couldn't shut her brain off. There was too much to consider, too many people to please, too many relationships to juggle. Her life was one big political mess.

And Merlin did she need a break.

* * *

Eileen put out her cigarette on the coffee table. The black mark stood out harshly on the oak.

"What are you doing here?" she asked softly.

Tobias had vacated the room without much of a fight. He'd taken one look at their visitor and decided that the nearest bar was the place to be—not a bad decision on his part, she rather wished she could join him. But cowardice wasn't a part of her character, she'd proven that when she was young and in love with the wrong man. And her guest, sitting across from her with that bloody, smug look on his face, lounging in her favorite arm chair, his muddy boots pressing painfully into her scarlet carpet, knew that better than anyone.

He smiled, revealing disgustingly yellow teeth.

"No greetings? No _I missed you, Thomas_?"

"I didn't miss you," Eileen snapped.

But, of course, she _had_ missed him. She had missed him every day for the past thirteen years, both in his absence and in the absence of the person she had thought he was. It was rather pathetic, but to her credit—

He was her sodding big brother.

Thomas obviously hadn't lost his touch. He reached up to push his bangs out of his face and continued to smile rather serenely.

"Dearest Eileen, we both know you are a _liar_," apparently there was a bit of dirt under his left thumb nail. He had been going at the bloody thing since the moment he had arrived. She gritted her teeth; traitorous brother though he was, he should at least have had the decency to look her in the eye while he spoke, "Do not pretend you did not miss me and do not pretend that you were not disappointed when I failed to support you all those years ago. Your bitterness is painfully obvious."

He glanced up for a fraction of a second, his big blue eyes shining with mirth. His lips were still curled up, but somehow the look had become sinister. It struck Eileen then how disturbingly much Blair resembled her uncle. She had his high cheek bones and his piercing gaze.

Thomas was also far more attractive than she herself was. Blair had inherited that from him too, it seemed.

She hadn't smoked in years, but found herself reaching for a second cigarette. She could only thank Merlin that she always kept a pack in the house for _life's little emergencies_.

"You didn't answer my question," she lit it and took a drag, "What are you doing here?"

"I don't suppose I could have a cigarette?"

"Absolutely not."

Thomas chuckled softly, "Naturally," he folded his hands in his lap, "Right then. I came here to ask, sister, when you were going to tell me that you'd had a child?"

The breath caught in Eileen's full lungs.

It had almost slipped her mind that Blair would be home that evening. The Evans' had phoned the night before to offer to pick both girls up from the train station and Eileen, tired as she'd been at the time, had agreed. She supposed it was a good thing, looking at the situation she currently found herself in. No need to worry about shaking dear Thomas to go fetch her. No need to worry about Thomas following her to King's Cross. No need to worry about anything Blair-related, really. The only problem here was getting her brother out of the house before the muggle family showed up.

She exhaled. Things were not as bad as they could have been, _should _have been, really. As big a threat as Thomas was, he'd seriously miscalculated this moment.

"Well," Eileen took another slow drag off her cigarette and offered Thomas a rather deliberate look, "she's half blood, isn't she? I didn't think you would care, seeing as you were so _firmly_ on Father's side. You said so yourself, you'd _disappointed _me, remember?"

He hesitated. His expression didn't change, his eyes remained locked on hers and even his hands, resting lazily on his knees, didn't twitch. But it was there, something only a sister would notice. He hesitated and she won the match.

It was good to know she hadn't lost her touch either.

"Regardless," Thomas began after an extended moment. He spoke slowly, carefully. As if he did not want to give anything away, "She is my niece. She is—," he paused again, "an heir to the Prince line."

It took Eileen a fraction of a second, but that second slip up screamed the truth.

She hadn't kept tabs on her family—she was hurt and her pride was demanding and somehow it just didn't sit right in her stomach, knowing what they were up to. Her mother and father didn't matter so much, they were getting old and even dark wizards weren't immune to death. Her brother, on the other hand, was the only other living Prince heir. Naturally, with her betrayal and all, his children would be expected to carry on the family name.

Neither of them was getting any younger. Her father didn't have any siblings, there were no others, so it would be their children to carry on the name, the line, all of it. But Thomas was not wearing a wedding ring and Eileen was. And Thomas' knuckles were rapidly turning white.

Blair wasn't _an_ heir to the Prince line.

She was _the_ heir.

Eileen's stomach dropped a few inches and she sucked hard on the end of her cigarette.

* * *

"Peter," Remus said after two hours of awkward conversation, "I'll be right back."

He didn't give an excuse—not the bathroom, not the candy trolley. Peter was nice, but he tried too hard and was terribly socially inept without James or Sirius to feed off of. Remus had given him a fair chance in a one on one context, but he was not nearly as charismatic as the other two and he did not have a habit of dominating conversations. Peter needed that in his interactions, but Remus couldn't give it to him. Thus, the awkward pauses and darting eyes.

Besides, he had seen Blair sneak into a compartment by herself and surely she would provide better entertainment.

* * *

Implications hung heavily in the air between them.

"You understand, I'm sure," Thomas continued, his eyes finally meeting hers, "the delicate situation we find ourselves in. We must be careful. Father, naturally, is in a raging temper. A half blood, carrying on the great _Prince_ line? Blasphemy."

He spoke with a certain bitterness. Eileen realized her cigarette was suddenly and entirely spent. She reached for another, noticing moments too late that her hand shook as it maneuvered the stick from the pack. Thomas watched the movement blankly.

"A female, no less," he added under his breath.

Eileen lit her new cigarette, "Does he know you came to me?" she asked without thinking. She glanced up seconds later, just in time to catch a rather strange expression leave his face. He offered no answer.

They stared at each other across that short oak coffee table and smoke rose slowly from Eileen's cigarette.

* * *

The compartment door slid open.

Blair glanced away from the blurred countryside as Remus Lupin stepped inside without waiting for an invitation and flopped down into the seat across from her. She scowled, watching him settle himself. He was far too complacent. Merlin knew who had seen him enter as if—

Well, as if they were friends. Which they most definitely were _not._

"Did anyone—?" she started to ask, but the boy smiled mildly and cut her off.

"Not to worry, Blair. I'm fairly sure there aren't any Slytherins in this car, let alone any keeping tabs on you."

She deepened her scowl and folded her arms, aware she probably looked like a put out child and completely unconcerned about it. Remus Lupin's opinion of her was hardly at the top of the list of things Blair Snape worried about. "What do you want, then?" she snapped. He blinked innocently.

"Well, I saw you alone earlier and Peter is probably overjoyed at not having to force anymore awkward conversation," Remus shifted and their knees bumped. Blair pressed herself further into her corner, "Not that he isn't a brilliant friend, but the boy is completely hopeless when he doesn't have a dominant personality to feed off of. So I came to talk to you."

"Because the few conversations we've had during Potions weren't awkward _or_ forced," Blair replied sarcastically and he chuckled.

"I wouldn't consider them so. They just took place at an inopportune moment."

They made eye contact then, mostly because Blair was a bit thrown by the accuracy of Remus' assessment. The boy smiled again and suddenly, strangely, she felt more at ease than she had in months. It was bizarre, considering how on edge he had made her the last time they had rode this train together. Things had definitely changed since September.

"Right," she said softly. Remus grinned and took it for what it was: an invitation.

"So," he leaned against the window sill and fixed her in a stern stare, "Tell me, Miss Snape, how _are _you this fine December afternoon?"

Blair snorted and rolled her eyes, but leaned forward to begin a conversation.

* * *

"I do not know what he intends to do," Thomas said softly, "He could ignore her, he could force his influence on her. There's no telling yet because, as I said, he's still working through his fury."

Eileen took another drag off her cigarette, "And what is this?" she fixed him in as steady a stare as she could manage under the circumstances. Her big brother blinked once.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"_This_," she gestured between them vaguely, leaving a trail of smoke in her hand's wake. Thomas blinked twice this time, rapidly, and his fingers, so tangled where they rested on his lap, tightened. "Is this what you call redemption?"

She waited seconds for his reply, seconds for something she already knew she wouldn't get. Honesty had never been one of his strong suits. Thomas stood, turning towards the door and shifting his cloak as he did. "My loyalty lies with the Prince line, Eileen," he said flatly, shifting the collar of his dress shirt—she only noticed now a couple of yellow stains down its front, hidden beneath the folds of his cloak—"Father will do what he believes is necessary. You should know that."

Eileen bit back a hysterical chuckle, "I already did."

Thomas nodded and swept to the hallway, pausing briefly just before turning towards the front door. He glanced back at her once, over his shoulder and under heavy lids. "Goodbye, sister," he murmured and disappeared around the corner.

Eileen finished her cigarette.

"Goodbye, brother."

* * *

"—I guess. I mean, it's not all glitz and glamour, like most people assume. He used to come home with hundreds of cuts and looking as if he'd run through a sewer."

They were talking about their families.

"I would never imagine being an Auror as glamorous," Blair frowned, "You'd be hunting dark wizards, for Merlin's sake."

How in the hell had he gotten her to talk about her family?

"Your mum being a Potions Mistress makes sense, though," Remus smiled slightly, "What, with you being so absolutely brilliant at it and all. I'd be a disaster without you."

She could feel her face heating up. She rolled her eyes, "Too right."

They lapsed into a rare, amiable silence. Blair turned her head towards the window and found a night sky spread out before her. She blinked; the last time she'd checked it had been late afternoon. It was strange, how easy it was to talk to him. Their conversation had spanned hours, but had felt like minutes at the most. They'd discussed everything—classes, people, family. She'd gone as far as mentioning Tobias' crappy attitude, though it'd taken her a moment to realize what she was saying and Remus had taken on the strangest expression at her words.

"Merlin, it's gotten late," Remus murmured and she glanced at him. He smiled at her again; she looked away again.

Bloody Gryffindors. What was it about them that she simply couldn't shake?

The train was slowing down. A man's voice announced that they would arrive at King's Cross in ten minutes over the speakers.

"I'd best get back to Peter," Remus said, "and my luggage," he stood and inclined his head to her, "It was lovely talking to you, Blair. Have a brilliant holiday."

"You too," she heard herself say, then grimaced when he grinned.

As the door shut behind him, Blair stood and levitated her trunk down from the luggage rack. She sighed.

A brilliant holiday.

Yeah, right.

A/N: I _know_. Not a lot happened. But next chapter should be coming soon! Please read and review.


	14. Chapter 14

Thank you for the reviews!

I'm sorry this took so long. I've been at my house and my house has no wifi. However, now I am in my apartment, which does have wifi, so now I can post. Yay!

I do not own Harry Potter.

_December, 1971_

When the car pulled up to the sidewalk outside her house, Blair was surprised she hadn't killed Petunia.

For reasons she'd never understand, Lily's parents had deemed it—_appropriate_ to bring the older girl on their trip to pick the two witches up from King's Cross. It was a testament to their naiveté—Petunia had been nothing but sour and rude since Blair had entered the car and, despite the fact that Lily sat between them, she couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much trouble controlling herself. The Evans, naturally, were entirely oblivious and Lily, though she wasn't making a spectacle of the tension between her best friend and her sister, was obviously trying to keep it that way.

"Thank you, Mr. Evans, Mrs. Evans," said Blair, wrapping her fingers around the door handle even as she spoke. Petunia snorted under her breath and Lily, to the brunette's relish, put an elbow in her ribs.

"You're most welcome dear," Mrs. Evans said around her head rest, "And remember, you're welcome to visit anytime."

Blair offered what she hoped was an agreeable smile and pushed the door open. Mr. Evans had already left the car and was pulling her luggage out of the trunk.

"I'll see you later," Lily murmured and Blair nodded as she slipped out of the car.

The front door to her house was not locked and her father's car was not in the drive way. Blair glared at the empty spot for a second, then stalked inside, intent on finding her mother and demanding some answers. She was tired of being treated like a child, tired of being left in the dark. Her father was having multiple affairs, her mother was deeply depressed and there was a darkness growing in the world outside of her unhappy little home life. She let her trunk fall to the floor just inside the door, kicked off her shoes and shouted:

"Mum!"

* * *

The first thing Lily's parents wanted when they arrived home was a detailed description of her first term at Hogwarts.

She was tired, more than anything she wanted to take an early night and just go to bed. But her mum was blinking widely at her over her coffee and her dad had this curious, almost child-like smile on his face. She'd known her letters weren't all that descriptive—she'd mentioned a few of her classes, she'd talked briefly about her house and she had told them once or twice about her new friends. But there was only so much one could fit onto one side of parchment.

Lily sighed and settled in to talk.

* * *

Remus knew his mother meant well, but when she'd noticed the small smile he'd flashed in Blair's direction over her shoulder as they'd left the platform, he knew he was in trouble. He'd seen that sparkle in Catherine Lupin's eyes far too many times to think he could escape whatever bizarre thoughts were churning her mind.

He could only thank Merlin that she'd waited until they were in the car to start in on him. The last thing he needed was for Blair to hear—

Catherine turned in the front seat merely moments after they'd left the parking lot at King's Cross and said, "Who was that lovely young lady on the platform?"

Well, _that_.

"A friend," he said shortly, keeping his eyes on the city rather than on his mother's smirk. In the driver's seat, his father shifted slightly and glanced at his wife.

"What lovely young lady?" John asked. There was a devious smile dripping all over his voice. Remus let his forehead collide with his window, the forlorn thump reverberating around the small car.

"Remus smiled at her as we were leaving," Catherine replied, "I think he may fancy her."

"I do not," he snapped irritably. As much as he loved his parents—and he loved them more than anything in the world—they were absolutely terrible when it came to _girls_. They'd teased him so many times when they'd left their small cottage in the woods to go shopping in a nearby village—"Oh, Remus, that girl is smiling at you," and, "Stop staring, Remus, if you like her, just go and talk to her,"—that if he hadn't known so much better, he'd swear they were encouraging him to mingle with members of the opposite sex. Besides, he was still quite young—_twelve_, for Merlin's sake, much too young for anyone to be involved romantically, even when one ignored the fact that he was—

Well, Catherine and John both knew better. And he did too. So he just didn't understand why—

"Then why are you blushing?" his mother was peering at him severely around her headrest. Remus scowled deeply at her.

"I'm just imagining what she would have done to me if she'd heard you talking like this," he grumbled.

His parents laughed.

* * *

Blair was sitting in the seat Thomas had vacated barely an hour before, looking pointedly at her full ashtray and crossing her legs in a perfect imitation of her uncle.

Eileen sighed and lit yet another cigarette to calm her nerves.

Talking to her daughter had never been easy, especially when the girl fixed her in one of those piercing _looks_—the sort of look that demanded answers, even if they were complicated and painful to give. But now, in the wake of what had just happened with her brother, Eileen just couldn't find the words she needed to give Blair the explanations she wanted—deserved. She inhaled deeply and released a slow stream of smoke.

"I need to know," Blair said after a pause, "I need to be prepared."

Yeah, she knew that. Of course she knew that. She'd lived through that bloody common room, hadn't she? She'd survived it. But then again—she'd been a pureblood, near royalty at that. She hadn't had nearly the number of enemies that Blair had inherited due to Eileen's severe lapse of judgment.

Marrying Tobias. What the hell had she been thinking?

"_Mother_," Blair breathed with exaggerated patience.

And then it all came spilling out.

Eileen told the little brunette about Thomas, about her grandfather Charles and about the powerful, illustrious House of Prince. She spoke of Dark witches and wizards, of their family's less-than-admirable heritage, of her own questionable past. She mentioned _expectations_ and _disappointments_, _decisions_ and _regrets_. And last of all, she whispered the growing rumors and the name that most wizards were beginning to say with fear.

"Voldemort," Blair repeated incredulously, speaking for the first time since Eileen's dam had broken, "Really? Isn't that a bit theatrical?"

Eileen chuckled morbidly, "I suppose. He'd probably disagree."

"And these Death Eaters that Avery mentioned—are his followers?" the child's wheels were turning, Eileen could see that very clearly.

"Yes."

"And they're anti-muggle."

Something in the way Blair said it—with distaste, even annoyance—relaxed her more than she cared to admit. Eileen pushed her half smoked cigarette into the large pile of ashes on the tray in front of her and left it there.

"You must be careful, Blair," she said flatly. Black eyes rose to meet her own. Blair's face had twisted in to a strangely pinched expression.

"I am," she replied, as if insulted.

* * *

On the second day of their holiday, Blair showed up at Lily's front door looking extremely put out.

"Let's go for a walk," she said flatly before the redhead could ask, "Really. A long walk."

Lily had seen Blair like this a few times before. It wasn't a Tobias mood—quite the contrary, it was almost the _opposite_ of one. When her father set her off, the petite brunette turned surly, distracted, irritable. This, however, was merely evasion and a whole lot of it. It happened rarely and, she realized with a start, only when Blair's muggle grandmother, Clarice, was in town.

"Alright," Lily began to search the many hooks beside the front door for her coat, "Give me a moment."

Five minutes later, wrapped in a thick brown coat and a scarf bearing the Gryffindor colors of scarlet and gold, she followed Blair down the front walk and onto the sidewalk. The other girl, she realized, hadn't turned in the direction of their normal escape—the woods.

"Where're we going?" she asked, stepping awkwardly over a bit of ice on the pavement.

"Eggnog," Blair grunted, "Clarice was positively _scandalized_ when she realized we didn't have any. Went on about it for hours before Tobias finally threw a bunch of money at me and told me to go and get some."

"She's visiting for Christmas, then?"

"Oh yes," a strange smile appeared on Blair's face, "If there's anything my parents can still agree on, it's that Clarice is worse than a vampire whose smelt blood. She's a nightmare, but at least they're getting along. He hasn't even been off with that blonde since I've been back, Clarice has got him so distracted," she paused a moment, before saying wistfully, "It'll be nice while it lasts."

Lily nearly stumbled on a stray snow drift as she stared at the side of her friend's head, quite unsure of what to say.

* * *

Christmas morning brought more gifts than Blair had expected.

The usual, or predictable, were all accounted for. A silver wool scarf from her mother, a book of higher level potions from Evan, a box stuffed full of chocolates and Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Beans from Lily. But then there were the unexpected—a quill from Lucius, of all people. And chocolates and ridiculous jokes from Lupin. Lucius, she knew, would not demand anything in return. But Lupin—

She could just imagine the hurt-puppy look she'd receive on the train. He'd try to hide it, but—and she'd never admit this out loud—she'd gotten quite good at reading him.

So Blair stole her mother's latest copy of the _Prophet_ and scanned the advertisements. Surely there would be something that a stubborn Gryffindor boy would enjoy hidden somewhere in the pages.

* * *

Clarice had never thought much of Eileen.

It wasn't just an issue of looks—though Clarice had pointed out numerous times to Tobias the fact that his wife (fiancé, at the time) just wasn't all that attractive. She'd always supposed that it was a _passion_ thing between them—though, even that didn't make much sense, given that their marriage had never been what one would call, well, stable. It was more of a feeling she'd always gotten from the younger woman, as if she was keeping a secret, a big one, and had no intention of ever divulging it.

Clarice had never been the type for secrets. She'd always viewed them as a sort of weakness, just waiting to be exploited. Not that she'd ever exploit Eileen, she was Tobias' _wife_, after all, despite any and all problems with their marriage, and it was clear that her son intended to stay with her, as he had for so long already. It was something Clarice accepted now—Tobias had made his choice and she herself would have to live with Eileen until the day her body finally gave out and she kicked the bucket (for lack of a better term). And she had grown to be somewhat alright with that, though she'd always felt that he could have done better, because she was also sure he could have done much worse.

In recent years, however, something had changed in her daughter in law, something Clarice had seen fit to ignore at first. It wasn't until Blair's tenth Christmas, a rather bleak affair in and of itself, that she'd even admitted that something was most definitely off in Eileen and that, perhaps, the cause rested somewhere near her son.

She had begun to question that following Easter whether or not Tobias was actually having an affair, something she herself abhorred, because when you chose someone, you either stuck with them or you left them—there was _no_ in between. Clarice was almost ashamed. He was _her _son, after all. What did his behavior say about her parenting skills?

On Blair's eleventh Christmas, Clarice resolved to confront Tobias—if she was right and he was having an affair, it was her job as mother to put a stop to it. And so, when Blair had wandered off into the backyard around lunchtime—to do lord knows what—the day after Christmas and Eileen had retired to the basement to do _chores_—yet another oddity in her daughter in law, but one she was suddenly willing to overlook—Clarice cornered Tobias in the sitting room, using the sparsely decorated tree to block his exit, and fixed him in her best _stern mother_ look.

"_What_ do you think you're doing, Tobias?" she demanded harshly, shoving her fists against her slowly failing hips.

He blinked at her through a curtain of greasy black hair and she winced. He needed to learn to take better care of himself; he looked more and more like a street bum every time she saw him. What did his _other woman_ even see in him, anyway? "What're you talking about?" Tobias mumbled, sounding for all the world like a petulant child rather than a grown man. Clarice bared her teeth.

"You know full well what. The _affair_ that you're having. The affair that your wife clearly knows about," she exhaled harshly, "I taught you better than that."

Tobias looked taken a back for a fraction of a second. Then he looked angry.

"You don't know _what_ you're talking about," he hissed, spittle flying from his thin lips and colliding with her cheek, "You have _no idea_. I didn't even invite you here, _mother_, but I let you stay. I don't know why. You're not welcome here. _You're _the one who makes everyone miserable." He capped this speech off with a cruel smirk and folded his arms, as if he'd accomplished something, though she couldn't begin to imagine what.

Clarice clenched her jaw—if he thought she was going to back down, he had another thing coming. He was her _son_. An ungrateful, spoiled, foul son, but her son nonetheless. And this was her family. And she was duty bound to protect them, even from themselves.

"Fine," she said coolly, "Deny it all you want, Tobias. But I think we all know what you've been doing. So _think_. If not of your wife, then of your daughter."

Something bizarre replaced the anger on Tobias' face. Something unexpected and inexplicable. And it was only for a fraction of a second, but it was long enough. Clarice blinked and Tobias' snarl returned full force.

"My daughter?" he spat, "I would rather _not _think of that _girl_."

And then he shoved passed, nearly knocking over the tree in his haste to flee. And Clarice was left standing and staring at the hearth, entirely unsure of what to think.

* * *

The holiday passed quietly for Remus.

With no full moon to contend with, he was able to merely relax about the small Lupin cottage: lounging in the sitting room and drinking Catherine's famous hot cocoa, curling up on his unmade bed with a book. As much as he loved Hogwarts, as grateful as he was that Dumbledore had made an exception for him, the break was a nice change of pace in which he didn't have to worry about homework, whether or not he was going to say the wrong thing and land himself on the wrong side of Blair's wand, or about James, Sirius and Peter realizing that they were sharing a dormitory with the only book worm werewolf on the planet.

It was much easier to think about it, at home, safe, with his parents. In the Gryffindor common room he hadn't even been able to say the word in his head—his paranoia had been so much for the first term, he had feared mind readers lurked around every corner. Never mind that the teachers already knew, never mind that Dumbledore would protect him—at Hogwarts, he wasn't the animal, the monster. He was just Remus Lupin, the boy with the books, the sweet tooth and the friends.

He'd received gifts from them, his friends—well, _most_ of them, anyway. James had sent him a fake wand that had startled his poor mother so much on Boxing Day by shrieking and sprouting a head that suspiciously resembled the fifth year Ravenclaw who claimed to see the future, Sibyll Trelawney, that she sent an entire bowl of porridge soaring onto his father's head. Sirius had offered a surprisingly innocent gift in the form of a book of spells—though, Remus had begun to read through the first few chapters and was beginning to suspect that most of them were already part of elaborate plots to prank sixth and seventh year Slytherins. Peter and Lily seemed to have been on the same wavelength when choosing gifts and had both sent him boxes of Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Only Blair, to whom he had sent chocolate and a rather cheeky card, had not returned the favor, though he hadn't really expected her to. Still, he was a bit disappointed, even in the wake of the warm, light feeling he'd gotten from his other gifts, that she hadn't thought of him.

At the end of the holiday, with his trunk packed and bundled up in a thick winter jacket, Catherine drove him the hour from their little country cottage back to King's Cross. They said their goodbyes and he entered the platform feeling rather down. He hadn't noticed it until it until the feeling was absent, but he'd been so tense for the entire first half of his first year at Hogwarts. So afraid that he'd slip up, that someone would learn his secret.

That he'd be forced to leave.

Remus paused on the platform and gazed at the Hogwarts Express. The scarlet steam engine snaked away down the tracks and families hugged their children, bidding them a good second term. And a tiny brunette was stalking through the crowd, making a beeline for him.

He blinked.

Blair?

His Potions partner came to an abrupt halt in front of him, standing closer than he'd ever thought possible for her, and thrust a package into his stomach.

"Sorry I didn't send it in time for Christmas," she snapped before he could ask or respond, "Don't sit with me on the train."

And then she spun and strode back to the Hogwarts Express, leaving him standing there, holding the package and grinning like an idiot.


	15. Chapter 15

Thank you for the reviews! I'm glad you all like my portrayal of young Remus. I was going for appealing and I guess I succeeded.

A random note about my apparent name changing: So, I was rereading part of this and I realized that, during the sorting, I have Avery the first time "William." I don't know where that came from, because I definitely put his name down as "Edward" in my notes (JKR never gave him a first name, at least not that I can find). So, uh, just ignore that. Thanks!

ALSO, I AM SO SORRY. I was super busy working double shifts and then, when I did have time, I was totally addicted to Misfits (and everybody should watch it, _it's so good_). And THEN I started writing the Epilogue of the second story in this series, as one does, and while I totally finished it (so now I have something to aim for, lol), it totally took away from writing the first story, which, I'm sorry. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

ANOTHER UPDATE. I HAVE BEEN INSPIRED SO HARD BY DH2. ALAN RICKMAN WAS SO PERFECT, I JUST CAN'T, OKAY? I LOVE HIM AND I LOVE SEVERUS SNAPE. HE WILL BE MY FAVORITE CHARACTER FOREVER AND EVER.

What I'm trying to say is…I'm pretty sure I'm going to be writing this story more frequently starting…now.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I wrote this purely for my own entertainment and no profit whatsoever.

_April, 1971_

For all the tension and uncertainty of the first term, the second was remarkably quiet.

Blair realized now that she might have been overreacting in September, October, November, probably even December. Yes, Bellatrix Black was evil and nasty and it did seem that Lucius Malfoy had marked her or something equally bizarre, but nobody seemed to notice her and nobody seemed to care when she was in the Common Room, with or without Evan. Yes, she was sure that there was a great deal of political tension, but that was for the older students and a first year like her was meaningless in the grand scheme of things. And yes, she'd kept an eye out for Death Eaters and whispers of Voldemort or whatever his name was, but Eileen had clearly been overreacting just as much as she had been, because no one tried to recruit her and she hadn't see anything even remotely suggestive of an anti-muggle cult forming in Hogwarts.

Sure, her house hated muggle borns, but that was old news.

She began to feel so stupid that, in March, she decided that hanging out with Lily on the grounds wasn't the worst idea in the world. As long as they didn't draw attention to themselves and as long as Evan pretended he didn't know where she was going, it really wasn't all that dramatic or secretive. They'd just take strolls by the lake and Forbidden Forest and gossip about stupid things, like who'd blown up what in Flitwick's last lesson or how many cauldrons Peter Pettigrew had melted to date.

Sometimes, she even let Remus come along.

She did very well in her classes. She was third, behind a shy Ravenclaw girl she'd never met and, to her absolute disgust, Edward Avery, who seemed to be smirking at her every time she caught his eye. Horace Slughorn had taken a particular liking for her, as her obvious experience and talent with potions made her the only student in the first year that hadn't melted a cauldron.

Evan still fought with Potter. Black was still arrogant and seemed to think he could prank people like Lucius without retaliation. Dolohov still stared a little too long and was still a little too creepy for her taste. Lily still giggled and Remus was still awkwardly endearing.

Nothing exciting happened. It was just—school. With friends.

And she loved it more than she'd loved anything in her life.

_May, 1971_

Remus was feeling particularly awful after May's full moon cycle.

He told Madame Pomfrey he was fine. He insisted. _Yes, I can walk, I don't know what you mean, that's just a tiny limp, it will fade in a few hours._ He worked so hard to keep his balance as she surveyed him with those critical eyes. His legs quivered as she checked the dressings across his chest three more times. His eyes watered as she rubbed several healing salves on his bruises and the smaller cuts. While he knew that her close inspection only meant she cared, he was terrified her final examinations would never end.

It was a great relief when, around eight in the evening (which was far, _far _later than usual), she let him leave. He was able to drag himself down three corridors before his strength gave out and he was forced to duck into the nearest boy's bathroom.

The truth was that he hated it when his mother fussed over him after moons and it was even worse when this outsider—kind and understanding as she was, it had only been a year—looked at him with big, worried eyes and adjusted his sheets every four minutes. Yes, she had been in his confidence for a year and no one in the school could understand him quiet as well as she could, but there were things that Remus just couldn't share with her, things he would never burden her with. Being a werewolf was dreadful business and sometimes, after, he just needed to be alone.

It felt like an entire week went by before he was able to pull himself out of the stall he had locked himself in for his rest, but it was really only about ten minutes. Everything ached. He wasn't sure what had brought on such a horrific transformation—sometimes it just happened that way—but he was certain that this had been one of the worst he'd ever experienced. He hadn't gotten a good look at himself yet, but he was certain he probably looked like—well, like he'd gotten into a fight with a werewolf. Which he had. Sort of.

Perhaps it was lucky that Madame Pomfrey had kept him so late. The corridors were deserted as he limped and braced himself to Gryffindor Tower.

Of course, he was Remus Lupin and his luck never held, so it was only four corridors later that the voice interrupted his slow and steady trek from the Hospital Wing.

"Lupin?"

For a moment, he was sure his heart was going to fly out of his chest. _No, no, NO!_ Of all the people to run across him like this, in such a large school, it had to be—

Blair didn't speak as she moved closer, but Remus could feel her eyes all over him, running from his shaking legs to the hand he had braced on the wall. He could almost hear the wheels in her mind turning—that was the unfortunate thing about the friends he'd made. They were lovely and he wasn't sure he'd survive a whole summer without any of them, but they were _too bloody sharp_ and he had too many secrets.

She was barely a foot away when he decided to try to turn towards her. Maybe, if he forced eye contact, she wouldn't notice the way his dressings puckered his robes over his chest, or the bruises he could feel on his neck, just under his ear. Blair didn't like eye contact. Probably because hers were so expressive. It was his best bet to distract her.

He nearly made it too, just catching sight of the slight frown on her face before his left knee decided to give out entirely.

She caught him, but, as he was larger than she was, it was only so she could lower him slowly to the ground. They knelt together and Blair pushed his right leg out from under his left so he wouldn't crush it with his now painfully dead weight. Then, to his horror, there was silence.

Suddenly, for all of his brief plotting, he couldn't look her in the eye. She was too busy surveying his damaged body to notice.

Blair's tiny hands slid up his arms, then parted them, giving her a full view of his chest. He swallowed, momentarily stunned at how bold she was being, but then she reached for the clasp of his robes and instinct took over. He grabbed her wrists and she exhaled sharply. Because the bandages weren't the only thing he hid beneath his robes and his old t shirts. Something far worse, if she looked lower, running from his ribs and down passed his left hip. A mark he couldn't explain away. A mark that would give him away in a second.

He knew how hard he was holding her, but he couldn't make himself let go. It was a self preservation thing.

They were both breathing very hard.

"Lupin," she hissed, "Lupin, what's wrong with you?"

Remus felt his mouth open, but nothing came out. He wasn't surprised. What could he say?

"Lupin," Blair repeated, and though her voice was even, she was twisting slightly in his grip. He wondered if she was going to reach for her wand.

"I—" his own voice sounded foreign to him, almost like it wasn't even human, "can't—"

If he let her go and she went for her wand, she would over power him. There was no way he could reach his in time and Blair knew now that something was horribly, horribly wrong with him. And she wouldn't let it go. It wasn't in her nature. And after what she'd seen? His obvious yet hidden injuries, his reaction to their possible exposure? He couldn't imagine what she was thinking, but he knew it wasn't good for him. And Remus couldn't blame her for that.

"_Remus_."

It was only hearing it that made him realize she'd never called him by his first name before. His fingers loosened—it was over. Blair would know in a matter of seconds, she'd be disgusted, horrified and she'd tell everyone. She'd get him expelled, probably in loads of trouble with the Ministry. And again, he couldn't blame her. After all, who wanted a werewolf for a potions partner? No one he knew. He certainly wouldn't, if he had been the normal one.

But Blair stayed completely still, even when his hands slid from her wrists and collapsed in his lap. Her eyes were locked on the clasp and, as he surveyed her face, he thought he saw a flash of recognition. But then, after the longest second of his life, she returned his stare.

"Do you need the Hospital Wing?" she asked slowly.

Remus blinked.

The words were so unexpected, so inexplicable, and now, after all that, she sounded so strangely detached. He simply did not know what to do, what to say.

Barely seconds before, the air had been electric, their breathing erratic, their knuckles white. Now, it was as if nothing had happened. The moment had passed and, for some reason, Blair was letting it go.

Remus' breathing evened out. He knew he had to speak to keep her suspicions from rising again.

"I—" even his voice had returned to normal, though he still hadn't quite remembered how to use it, "I was just there…"

"Do you need help getting to the Tower, then?"

It took everything he had to keep his mouth from falling open. Blair Snape's eyes didn't typically show with concern, but right now—if he hadn't known better, he'd swear he was staring at Lily rather than at her best friend.

"Blair, I…" he wanted to ask her what was happening, why she was letting something like this go. She'd seen him at his most vulnerable. She had to know something was wrong with him. "I don't know what to say…" he finished lamely and her eyes darted away, towards the end of the corridor and in the direction of Gryffindor Tower.

"It's nothing," she said, but it was obvious, under that calm tone, that she knew just as well as he did that it was _something_. But she reached for him anyway, pulling his arm over her shoulders and propelling them both to their feet. Remus, despite himself, leaned against her. It was easier to stand with her support.

She took a step. He followed.

* * *

Blair did not speak again until they reached the Fat Lady and Remus was in no way eager to push her. Her fingers were tight on his wrist, almost painful, but he supposed he deserved it for the way he'd grabbed her. He nearly fell a few times, but she paused long enough for him to regain his balance and take the briefest of rests. When the entrance to his Common Room came into view, she stopped, but didn't release him.

"I'm sorry," she murmured and, before he could react with surprise—because what did she have to be sorry for?—she looked him in the eye. The expression there wasn't something he could describe, but he could recognize understanding and pity and sorrow. Never before had someone who knew him to be a werewolf looked at him like that. But Blair had always been different, hadn't she? So maybe, just maybe, she could overlook this, overlook his disease. He swallowed, hoping against hope, and she continued, "Lily told me about your mother. Was she any better this visit?"

The disappointment hit before the question even registered in his mind.

Of course his lie had gotten back to her. He'd told Sirius, James and Peter, so he'd had to tell Lily too and it only made sense that the redhead would tell Blair, because they were all friends. Had it actually been true, he would have wanted her to know, which was why Lily had taken such a bold step. Because she was his friend and she knew him and—

And Blair. Blair, who, like him, hadn't had the easiest childhood. Blair, who had more or less confessed to a having a father that hated her. Blair, who believed he had gone to visit his mother and had come back bruised and battered and—

He pulled away from her, suddenly disgusted with himself.

Blair didn't follow him when he stepped away, so he had to brace himself against the wall again. She stood quietly behind him, waiting patiently for either a response, or for him to leave.

He wanted to look at her. He wanted to turn and tell her the truth, the consequences be damned. He probably should have. He was a Gryffindor, after all. Wasn't he supposed to be brave?

Instead, he spoke to the floor.

"She's surviving," his voice cracked. She shifted her robes. "Thank you for your help."

"It's nothing," she said again.

* * *

Blair returned to the Common Room late and distracted. Evan frowned as she sank onto the sofa beside him and stared into the fire.

She'd gone to the library. He'd assumed she'd wanted to get a book for the Charms essay they had due Friday, but apparently she'd gone to see those bloody Gryffindors again. She always had that distracted look after talking to one of them, as if her mind had lingered with them while her body had returned to him. He'd always looked the other way when she went to spend time with one or both of them, but it didn't mean he approved. Yes, Bella ignored her and Malfoy regarded her with a strange sort of fondness—one Evan was sure only he noticed, and only because she was his best friend, so he was supposed to see these things—but that didn't mean that spending time with two Gryffindors, one of whom was a mudblood, for the love of Merlin, was a good idea.

Besides, what was the point of spending time with two people as irritating as Lupin and Evans? The two of them oozed _nice_ and _agreeable_ and Blair certainly did not mix with either of those things. Yet, often she would excuse herself with a, "I need some air," or something equally unconvincing and would wander down to the grounds to hang out with them. She would be gone for hours. And sometimes, when he looked out of a choice corridor window, he would see them down by the lake, laughing, chatting, sometimes even chasing one another. He didn't even recognize her then. His stomach would turn with disgust.

What made her like them? What made her risk her Slytherin reputation—which, admittedly, was border line to being with, as she was a half blood and all that—to spend time with them? Surely their company wasn't_that_ stimulating.

And no, he was absolutely _not_ jealous that she so often abandoned him to sneak off to the lake with them.

He just thought they made her kind of stupid.

"Blair," he said flatly after a long silence, because he was tired of being overlooked and tired of being second choice, "Do you want to play wizard's chess?"

And she ignored him. He couldn't say he was surprised. It often took hours for her to shake the remains of their bloody, hideous Gryffindor red out of her eyes.

"Blair," he repeated, speaking only slightly louder and glaring so hard at the side of her head, he was honestly surprised she didn't burst into flames.

More silence.

"_Blair!"_ he snarled. Several people, including Lucius Malfoy, shot him annoyed looks.

And finally, _finally,_ Blair turned to look at him. "What?" she asked tiredly.

Evan scowled at her for one last moment and then, because he wouldn't play second fiddle to some stupid Gryffindors anymore, stood up and stormed away to his dormitory.

_June, 1971_

Evan gave her the silent treatment for two weeks.

It was absolute torture.

Blair could have taken it if he'd run off with Dolohov or Carrow—hell, even Avery. Then, at least, she would be able to think clearly about what could have possibly brought this level of anger on. But he obviously knew her far too well. Instead of ignoring her entirely, he sat beside her during meals, in classes, even in the Common Room, and didn't say a word. Her only company in his icy silence was the sound of his quill scratching across parchment, or his silver ware scraping across plates. He would acknowledge everyone else—when Alecto Carrow asked to borrow a quill, he engaged her in a two minute conversation about Ravenclaw winning the Quidditch Cup.

He'd never even been to a match. And not that she'd wanted to go either, but she'd sacrificed several perfectly good Saturday afternoons to sit with him in the deserted Common Room while the rest of the school was down at the pitch.

She was frustrated to the point of tears when, after a particularly tense Potions lesson—things still weren't even close to normal with Remus, who seemed absolutely terrified she'd bring up their strange run in and was apparently ready to bolt if she did—she was standing silently next to Lupin, adjusting her bag and blinking back traitorous tears, and Evan very intentionally shoved his way between them on his way out of the classroom.

He barely brushed Blair, but it was obvious the brunt of his attack had been meant for the Gryffindor boy. Lupin stumbled sideways into Rabastan Lestrange's cauldron, knocking it off the desk and to the floor. The potion inside it, which was apparently a reasonably made Shrinking Solution, splattered all over him, as well as Lestrange's partner, Marlene McKinnon.

Evan ignored the commotion he'd caused and continued on his way to the door. Blair and Remus stared at each other for a fraction of a second.

Then, after the tiniest delay, it was as if both Gryffindors were being strangled by robes that were much, much too small for them. It happened so quickly—McKinnon made a horrible choking noise and Remus sank down to his knees, struggling violently with a collar that was rapidly closing around his throat.

It took Slughorn another couple of seconds to realize what was happening—one would think, if two students were literally having the life squeezed out of them by their clothing, a teacher would react immediately, but Slughorn had never been the sharpest man. Then, shouting, "Oh dear, oh dear!" in a way that reminded Blair of Petunia Evans, of all people, he set about trying to split the murderous robes with his wand.

Avery, both Carrows and Lestrange seemed to find this display highly amusing and were smirking at one another. Black and Potter both leaped for Remus, trying to unlatch the clasp of his robes with fingers that dwarfed the now-tiny object. Lily was using her own wand, with far more success than Slughorn, to free McKinnon.

After several tense seconds of struggling, both Remus and McKinnon were released and gasping, clutching at their reddened throats.

Blair stared at her partner, willing him to give her the all clear. Warring with her concern for Remus was rage at her other friend, who had obviously slipped out of the dungeon under cover of choking classmates, and the desire to confront him once and for all was rising rapidly.

Potter slapped Remus' back and Lily rubbed McKinnon's. Slughorn waved his wand to clear away the remnants of the Shrinking Solution from the table, stools and floor. There was a long silence during which only the labored breathing of the two Gryffindors could be heard.

Finally, _finally_, Remus glanced up at her and nodded. "I'm fine," he rasped.

Blair forced a smile for him, then spun and stalked out of the dungeon.

* * *

Evan was lingering on the path to the lake when Blair finally caught up with him. One glance told him she was in a raging temper.

"Rosier, you—_you_—"

Apparently she couldn't find the right word to describe just what she thought he was.

He snorted and turned away with what he hoped she perceived as disdain. He barely made it two steps.

The lake tilted in his vision. Magic swept against his calves with more force than was really necessary and then he was inhaling a great deal of mud.

"Damn it, Blair!"

He rolled over, struggling violently with his robes, as they were now soaked by the puddle she'd thrown him into and apparently the pockets had all been sealed shut as a result. Blair had her wand trained on him, but that didn't stop Evan from dragging out his own and aiming it at her head.

Then there was a standoff. He gritted his teeth.

Stupid Blair. Of course she'd have such an extreme reaction to a little Potions accident.

"What if they hadn't gotten the robes off in time?" she hissed after a moment of silence, "What if they'd both choked?"

Evan snorted, "Slughorn wouldn't have let it happen."

"Slughorn's a _prat_."

"He still wouldn't have let it happen."

Blair exhaled sharply. His position on the ground gave him a perfect view of her flaring nostrils. "You. Are. _Impossible._"

And just like that, all of the tension evaporated from the air between them and left something oddly funny in its wake. Evan felt a hysterical sort of laugh bubbling up his throat and saw, with some relish, that his friend was struggling with a smile. They started to chuckle at the same time.

"It's not my fault you've got a fetish for Gryffindor," he said, "Lower your wand, will you?"

"I do _not_ have a fetish for Gryffindor," Blair tried to look irritated and failed miserably, "Lower _your _wand."

They dropped their arms, again at the same time. She moved forward to help him to his feet. He briefly considered shunning the hand she offered him, but decided against it, gripping the tiny fingers and wondering vaguely how someone so small could affect him in such a large way.

"I figured it might have something to do with that," she continued softly. She hadn't let go of his hand, "Evan, it's not that I favor them—"

"No," he agreed, "You want to be one of them."

It was funny, how quickly the mood of their conversation was swinging. Blair's face darkened considerably and he glared right back at her, all humor gone.

"No," she said after a moment, "No. I would never fit in Gryffindor. We both know that."

Evan was so aware of her grip. So aware of her pointer finger, the tiny nail pressed so firmly into the edge of his wrist. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he wanted to apologize for saying something so cruel. Because, no matter how many times she ran off with Lupin and Evans, she wasn't stupid. She knew who she was.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it.

"I've known Lily for years," Blair's voice was a low rasp, and far older than her years, "I knew her long before Hogwarts. We grew up together. We used to play in the woods. Sometimes, we still sneak off to that little abandoned shed to talk. She knows more about me than—than anyone. I think I must know her just as well. I know her favorite color and the boys she hates and how upset she gets when her sister calls her a freak. I knew she'd be in a different house. I knew she'd never be a Slytherin, not like me."

The words tumbled out of her like some sort of bizarre confession. She whispered them like she'd never voiced them before, like they were her darkest secret and he was the first to know. And she squeezed his hand so tightly—it was almost painful, but at the same time it let him know that this was _real_.

Big, black eyes rose to his. Evan's breath caught.

He'd never seen her so exposed before.

"I need you. And I need her. And I need you to understand that."

He didn't know what to say. He didn't think there was anything to say. He'd spent the entire year thinking he'd known Blair Snape, but now he was certain he'd never actually met her until this very moment. He watched her eyes swim with tears she'd never shed, watched her lips tighten to prevent a quiver, felt her fingers holding onto him as if he was the only thing keeping her grounded.

So he said, "You're my best friend," and dragged her against his chest, promising himself that he'd never let go.

_June, 1971_

He'd passed everything.

Remus couldn't pretend he wasn't relieved. While he'd been confident going into his exams, he'd still transformed into a bloody werewolf once a month and that had taken a bit of a toll on his studying. Nevertheless, his marks actually ranked eleventh in the class, one shy of Lily's tenth and only eight below Blair's mythical status. James and Sirius had both done reasonably well, considering they'd spent more time charming a horribly moldy pair of socks to follow Filch around, rubbing their muss on things he'd just cleaned than actually studying. Even Peter passed, though not without much help from Remus.

Lily was spending a bit of time with Alice and Marlene in the Common Room the day before they were due to leave for the summer and James, Sirius and Peter had decided to borrow a few of the school's brooms for practice on the Quidditch Pitch—James was intent on trying for the house team next year, Sirius was considering it, but everyone knew Peter was hopeless on a broom. Remus decided to pass on the exciting opportunity to watch the pudgy boy try to maneuver in the air again and instead opted to wander down to the lake—

Where, unfortunately, he ran into Blair.

And, of course, she glared daggers at him.

They hadn't really spoken since the incident after the full moon. There was this horrible tension between them—it probably stemmed from the fact that she believed a blatant lie and he was feeling horribly, horribly guilty about it. Not that he wasn't guilty that the others believed it, but the fact that it was Blair and there were the things that he'd guessed about her—

It made him miserable. And he just couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye.

But they were leaving for the summer and Remus considered Blair one of his closest friends. Obviously, James, Sirius and Peter were his best and Lily was lovely, but Blair…she was in a category of her own. She'd built it for herself in his heart, she'd latched herself there and now she simply would not let go.

He felt like an idiot.

"Hi," he muttered.

"Oh," she replied sarcastically, "Now you're speaking to me?"

Oh yes, he was definitely an idiot.

"I'm sorry," Remus grumbled, "I've been a prat. It's just that—you were there. And you were so…" What was the proper word? "Different." He wasn't going to tell her the truth. He already knew that. But this had also weighed on his mind. That different side of her, the compassionate, worried girl he'd met in the corridor that was so different from the one that was frowning at him now. And he could be honest about that. She deserved some truth.

Blair stared at him. Hard. As if she was trying to look through his mask, as if she knew he was holding back.

"Yes, well," she said after a moment, "You were clearly in pain. Abrasive could only make it worse."

"Ah."

"And I'm not completely terrible."

He smiled, "I know you're not. I think you're brilliant, actually."

Blair scowled and her eyes darted away. There was another pause, but at least some of the tension was slipping away.

"I'm trying to fix things. With people. Before the holiday," she confessed after a moment. Remus smiled weakly when she glanced at him. "I don't like leaving things…badly. I don't like unfinished business."

"No," he agreed, "I don't either."

"So," she was speaking awkwardly now. She obviously didn't have the right words—not that he did either, "This thing," she gestured between them lamely, "Is it—?"

"It's nothing," he muttered, saving her from the struggle.

Blair smiled. So did he.

* * *

Her trunk was ten pounds heavier than it had been in September.

Lily grunted as she and Blair pushed their shared trolley off of Platform 9 ¾ and back out into the muggle world. When they burst from the barrier, they nearly collided with the column opposite, stopping just in time, but drawing the attention of several irritated adults all the same.

"_Watch it!_" snapped a woman in a particularly foul mood before shoving her way around them and disappearing into the crowd. Blair glared after her.

"No magic is going to be dreadful," she muttered under her breath.

Before Lily could agree, her parents spotted them through the throngs of commuters and began to shout their names, waving and grinning. She couldn't help it. She rolled her eyes even as her lips twitched into a smile.

Behind them, Evan Rosier had just emerged from the platform with his mother—a tall woman with thick eyebrows and black leather gloves hiding her long fingers. He nodded once at Blair, his expression grave, and walked away without so much as acknowledging Lily. She frowned. By now, she'd accepted how close Blair and Rosier were, but that didn't mean she had to like him or his abysmal manners.

"He could at least say hi," she snapped. The brunette offered only a blank look in reply.

"Lily!" her father had reached them, "Blair! How are you? Are you ready for summer?"

Blair looked up at him. Her smile was weak, but she nodded, "Absolutely, Mr. Evans."

"It'll be nice to get a break from school work, won't it?" he said, putting a hand on Lily's shoulder and guiding them both through the crowd towards her mother. She noticed, with no small amount of relief, that Petunia had elected not to make the trip this time.

Peter Pettigrew bustled by with man that could only be his father. They both looked panicked about something. Blair smirked. Through a crowd of muggle school children, Lily spotted Potter, who shot her a grin.

She scowled.

Her father was still talking, "You can do whatever you want."

Blair and Lily exchanged a look.

* * *

A/N: And we're done with Blair's first year! And now I have some things to say (I know, I said a lot at the beginning of the chapter. Please bear with me!)

1. So, I'm not exactly happy with this, but I've been tweaking it nonstop for the past week and I don't think there's anything else I can do.

2. I introduced Evan Rosier's narrative far sooner than I had intended. But I realized that it was important to tell his side of the story, given how important he will be in the coming years. He is Blair's closest friend in Slytherin, after all.

3. I also introduced Blair to Remus' secret a little earlier than I'd planned. It's been so long since I revisited this story and, while I'm not saying I'm taking it in a different direction (after all, I've got Story II's epilogue written already!), I am going to approach things from another angle.

4. Thank you, thank you, _thank you_ for reading. I appreciate it so much.


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

_First half of Summer, 1971_

The Evans family went to Paris the first week of July.

Blair was furious about this, of course, because after having what could be called too many friends at Hogwarts—and by that she meant too many friends from different Houses—returning to the isolation of her early childhood was not only depressing, but almost physically painful.

It was odd, considering she'd had Lily for most of those lonelier years and she'd endured absences brought on by muggle schooling and fights with at least some dignity. But now, after adding two more people that she genuinely liked to her tiny list of friends, being alone suddenly seemed so much worse. She supposed, as she spent hours in the basement with her mother, helping her to brew complicated potions that, had she not been so miserable, would have fascinated her, that this amplified pain came from missing each Lily, Evan and Remus separately. Each friendship had become its own distinct entity over the past year and naturally, each would create its own misery because of the distance.

Knowing that didn't make her mope any less.

Worse, nothing had changed at Spinner's End. Eileen, though slightly invigorated by her uncle's visit, was still a shadow of the woman Blair had known as a child. Tobias, the _bastard_, carried on his affair with reckless abandon. Once, about a week after returning from Hogwarts, Blair saw the blonde woman at the supermarket while picking up some milk for Eileen's coffee—and she didn't know what was worse, the fact that her foul father's mistress was actually _pretty_ or the way she spoke to a teenage employee like he was a piece of meat.

Walking out of the store, she wondered vaguely if the woman Tobias was cheating with was unfaithful to _him_ with younger men. She snorted at the thought.

It would serve him right if she was.

* * *

It was after his first transformation of the holiday that Remus decided to write to Blair. He'd received plenty of letters from Lily in Paris, as well as from James, Sirius, even Peter. But from Blair he'd gotten nothing but silence, which really should not have surprised him, but did anyway.

He thought they'd taken at least a few steps that last day before they'd left for the summer. They'd taken a walk, _alone_, around the lake. They'd talked about their second year, about the possibility that they would no longer be Potions partners, about Lily, even about their mothers, Eileen and Catherine, though Remus was sure not everything was said that could have been on that particular subject (given that he was still lying about his mother's "illness" and Blair hadn't quite met his eyes when she'd said that her mother never regretted marrying her father).

And, at the end of this long conversation, Blair had _agreed_ to exchanging letters over the summer.

He had half a mind to tell her off for failing to do that. Of course, he didn't exactly know what he was going to say when he did, but he was sure it would come to him when he found paper and ink.

* * *

Her first letter of the summer came from Evan, in the third week of July.

_Dear Blair,_

_Hope you're well. _

_House Rosier is dreadful. Father is always gone—and not that he was around much to begin with, but it seems he's always off to some meeting or another lately. Mother contents herself with drink, not that she cared much for him to begin with._

_The cousins came for a visit yesterday. I haven't seen them at the house in years, as Father has never been one for Black family functions and he never did like Druella much. _

_Bellatrix is marrying Rodolphus Lestrange in the fall. _

It took a moment for this particular sentence to sink in. Everything preceding it—talk of his parents, of his dull home life—she'd heard it all before. But this. He'd never mentioned this. She read it again, and again and finally, as her brain made the connection, her stomach promptly turned over.

She supposed, given that he was a pureblood, he would have to be at least loosely related to some of the older Slytherin students. Probably even some of the students from other Houses. She'd learned enough of how the wizarding world worked to know that there were only so many pure lines left in Britain, perhaps even in the whole of Europe.

But still, how could they have been friends so long without the fact that he was related to Bellatrix sodding Black coming up?

_Naturally, she graduates and runs off with the first pure blood with an offer. He's years and years older than she is, did you know? Narcissa's in a towering temper. Nobody's made her an offer yet. You'd think, given she's due to be a fourth year next year, she'd have a little more patience. _

_Andromeda seems to think Bella's making a huge mistake. _

Bella. He called her Bella now. Blair nearly let loose a hysterical laugh.

_I've never met Rodolphus, but based on what she's said, he's probably a bit cracked. I've always trusted Andromeda's judgment._

Of course, this meant that he was related to Sirius Black too. Blair raked her memory for instances in which the two of them had interacted, but none sprung to mind. The only time she'd ever seen him with any of the Gryffindor boys, he'd fighting with Potter.

Blair glowered at the parchment in her hands and briefly considered burning it.

No, she'd never known her wizard family, but she knew that if _she'd _been related to _so many sodding people_, she would have at least mentioned it in passing. For Merlin's sake, they'd sat in the Common Room with half of them for an entire year!

_I don't suppose you'll be in London any time soon? If so, I'll drag Mother and meet you there._

_Evan_

Fuming, Blair dragged a bit of parchment out of her desk and set about writing a scathing letter to her best Slytherin friend.

* * *

Evan decided, after days and days of trying to coax his drunken mother out of her stupor, that he'd rather travel solo. And since it was nearing the date he'd set to meet Blair in Diagon Alley, he decided he'd better come up with a way to get there without her, as neither he nor Blair would be very happy with a cancellation.

Unfortunately, in an apparent attempt to keep his son confined to the house while he was off doing whatever it was that he did every single day, Master Rosier had elected to store the Floo Powder on the highest shelf of the tallest bookcase in his extremely clean and classic, yet horribly stuffy and cluttered study.

Being all of those things at the same time made it a very difficult room to occupy without extreme discomfort, which was the prime reason Evan hated it so much.

House Rosier couldn't really be called a manor—it was very large, yes, and there were ten bedrooms and four sitting rooms, but they were all very small rooms. This was probably why his father's study was so bizarre. It had all the qualities and style of a magnificent and sprawling library, yet in actuality, it was really not much bigger than Professor Slughorn's dungeon office at Hogwarts.

That is to say, it was quite small.

Apparently his great-great-great-great grandfather (the house had been in his family for generations, which was the prime reason his father was so keen to keep it that way) had been something of an eccentric and had convinced himself that small rooms improved the thought process. Why he would have thought that was far beyond Evan—he could not have concentrated on his homework anywhere inside the house if his life depended on it.

Of course, his grandfather could not have foreseen that his great-great-great grandson would use it to make life difficult for his great-great-great-great grandson. Perhaps, if he had, he would not have made it such a narrow space.

His father, in all of his arrogance, had squeezed a massive mahogany desk into the room. There was about one foot on each side for him to slip between it and the towering bookshelves—because, Evan supposed with no small amount of sarcasm, high ceilings also improved brain function. As he pushed his way through, he amused himself with the image of his father, who had gained quite a bit of weight when he entered middle age, trying to achieve the same thing.

Then, when he reached the area behind the desk, he craned his neck and blanched.

Evan evidently did not spend enough time in this room, as he'd forgotten just how high the Floo Powder sat. There was no way his father's chair—which occupied about half the space the floor behind the desk offered—would allow him to reach it, even if he somehow managed to balance himself on the back. He briefly considered levitating the jar down, but decided against it. He knew his father to be paranoid and there was no way he was going to perform unsanctioned and illegal magic in an office belonging solely to the man. There were probably all sorts of nasty spells set to prevent just that sort of thing.

For a moment, he entertained the idea of taking the Knight Bus.

Then, because the idea of riding that filthy disaster was far too disturbing, he decided climbing the shelves fifteen feet up, opening the jar, scooping out the tiniest bit of powder and climbing back down while managing to hold it in his hand was a much better plan.

Evan was not an athletic boy. He was by no means small and not exactly out of shape, but extreme physical effort was something that had never sat well with him. That was part of the reason he had never played Quidditch as a child, even on those few family occasions when Sirius and Regulus had teased him mercilessly for his flat refusal. It wasn't something that appealed to him and no amount of nasty comments from any of his more irritating cousins was going to change that.

But the idea of the letter he'd receive from Blair if he cancelled their meeting in Diagon Alley last minute, while slightly amusing, was also so frightening it propelled him up the first four shelves with ease. He'd already gotten something that really should have been a Howler from her that holiday and he didn't need another.

It wasn't until eight shelves up he began to get irritated and wondered, really, how badly could she shout at him through ink?

* * *

Blair's Hogwarts letter arrived at the very end of July. Tobias glared at it as they sat around the kitchen table, eating one of Eileen's lesser efforts at lamb stew. Of course, the poor taste could have been contributed to the rather foul gas that was currently leaking out from under the door to the basement. A wizard from Kent had ordered a large batch of Scintillation Solution and, unfortunately, in its early stages, the smell it created resembled something like dragon dung, or worse.

Perhaps that also contributed to her husband's mood. That, and the fact that he'd spent more nights at home than out the past two weeks.

"Right," said Eileen, scanning the supply list quickly and finding that her daughter needed surprisingly little in the way of new books and materials, "I suppose we can stop at Diagon Alley tomorrow, it will be quite a short trip. You'll need new potions ingredients, I assume. And we never did get you a pet that first time around, I know you said you didn't need an owl—"

"I still don't," Blair glanced up from her bowl, her expression surprisingly awkward, "And I told a friend I'd meet him there on the first."

Eileen stared. Tobias looked up sharply from his meal.

Clearly, she wasn't talking about Lily.

"What friend?" he snapped, looking between the two of them as though they had done something horrific, "He hasn't been to the house, has he?"

Blair rolled her eyes. "No," she said coldly, "He hasn't."

Tobias didn't look convinced. Eileen, however, had another concern. Who was this friend? Blair had never mentioned anyone outside of Lily in her letters and, while she certainly hadn't assumed her daughter hadn't made any other friends at Hogwarts, she hadn't realized that there was one held in such high regard that he merited a meeting in London.

"Who is he?" she asked, trying to sound casual rather than prying, "Have I met him?"

And for the briefest fraction of a moment, Blair hesitated. Then, before Eileen could fully begin to panic, she said, "His name is Evan Rosier."

Evan Rosier. _Rosier._

She hadn't known any Rosiers at school. She'd heard the name, of course, because it was a pure blood family, but she'd never met one. At least, none she could remember. No one distinct.

Eileen relaxed. She'd of course have to go with Blair to this meeting and she'd get a good look at the boy then. And if he was trouble, she'd be honest with her only child, who in turn would listen, because she always did.

"I'll make sure my schedule is clear," she said.

* * *

When they returned from Paris, they stopped in London to visit some of her mother's cousins.

At this point, Lily was at the end of her rope. Petunia had been _dreadful_ to her from the moment she'd entered the house at the end of June and nothing had changed in France, though Lily had tried, so, _so_ hard, to get her sister to relax. But Petunia, true to form, was sticking with her decision—

That is, that witches and wizards and magic and Hogwarts were all unnatural, sinful, and things that needed to be shunned.

She had become a brick wall in all matters concerning Lily—at least, in all matters concerning Lily that did not involve or have any chance of being witnessed by either of their parents.

Things came to a head Aunt Wilma's backyard on the last evening of their visit—not that Wilma was their aunt, as she was only thirty, though married to a much older man who had come with several children, but Lily had never really called her anything else. They—she and Petunia—were sitting side by side on the old swings of the rusted swing set, watching their six year old cousin, Billy, and their sixteen year old cousin, Hannah, in the sandbox ten feet away. They were building a sandcastle, though Billy had just discovered a worm and looked very interested in tasting it.

There was stiff silence between them, of course. Petunia didn't speak unless she wanted to insult Lily these days, and it seemed she had used her arsenal up over the Paris trip.

And as much as she hated it, it was also kind of a relief. It was becoming very hard to hold back her tears—frustrated or just plain miserable—and Lily wasn't sure she would withstand one more attack.

"Lily," Billy called, waving his worm—apparently, he hadn't put it in his mouth yet and was keen on sharing his discovery before he did so, "Lily, look at what I found!"

Lily smiled at him, "That's a very nice worm, Billy. The best I've ever seen."

Billy grinned widely and turned back to the sandcastle his sister was now building all by herself, the worm drifting precariously close to his mouth.

For a moment, the silence returned as Hannah noticed what her brother was doing and quickly snatched the worm away. Then—

"You know they don't know, don't you?" For a moment, Lily was confused as to what she meant, as her sister's voice was not at all cruel and she seemed merely conversational. Then, of course, Petunia kept talking. "Mum and Dad didn't tell them. About you. Where you went this year. Why do you think that is?"

She didn't need to change her tone at all. Her words conveyed her feelings perfectly, as they always did. Lily eyes began to burn almost immediately.

"Petunia," she said as softly and slowly as she could, "Now is not the time." She would have added, _Billy and Hannah are right there, for Merlin's sake_, but she didn't think that it would have helped much. Especially not the Merlin part, which she had picked up by spending far too much time with Marlene, Alice and Remus. Petunia snorted.

"No, of course not. _You _don't want them to know either. Because you know exactly what they'd think."

Lily knew very well how dangerous anger and magic could be—watching Blair had taught her to control her temper, because she'd seen what could happen if she didn't and somehow, she didn't think blowing up the sandbox would have helped her standing with Petunia any. She decided that tears would be worth even breathing and a slowing heart rate, so she focused on those two things instead.

Because the truth was, _she_ had been the one to ask her parents to keep their mouths shut about the magic. And she could tell herself as often as she wanted that she was thinking of how little they would understand and how hard it would be to keep them quiet about it, but at the end of the day, Petunia was right.

She'd spent far too much time with a sister that didn't accept her and it was more than she could stand. Sitting around a crowded dinner table with dozens of faces, once friendly, that reflected that same sentiment—Lily knew it would destroy her.

"Petunia—" she began hoarsely.

"Why did you even go?" Petunia cut her off, and this was certainly a new line of thought, so Lily stopped to listen, "Why go, after all that stuff that foul Blair did? She attacked me, remember, she—"

"That was an _accident!_" she protested before she could stop herself. Petunia turned to her then, looking her full in the face for the first time in months, and the expression on her face stopped anything else Lily was going to say—her eyes were wide and wild with anger, disgust and something else, something that looked remarkably like fear—

"An accident?" she said shrilly, "She could have _killed_ me!"

If Billy and Hannah hadn't been listening before, they certainly were now, with surprised looks and raised eyebrows. But Lily didn't care and Petunia didn't understand, and maybe that's what pushed the next words from her mouth, because she certainly would not have said them otherwise.

"You just don't understand, do you?" she cried as the tears started and she began to feel vaguely ill, "You think it's all pulling rabbits out of a hat and that everything is on purpose and you're just so _stupid_, Petunia! You're stupid and mean and _you're_ the reason we hide, don't you get it? But you wouldn't be so mean if it had been you and I wouldn't have been so mean if it had been you! And you know it! Blair's right—you're just jealous and I'm sorry it wasn't you and I'm sorry I'm different and I'm just _sorry_, so why can't you just accept that?"

A ringing silence followed her words. Billy and Hannah stared, their jaws resting on their folded knees, and Petunia's eyes looked ready to fall out of their sockets. Lily kept crying as she flung herself from the swing and turned to the house.

"Lils," Hannah began quietly, but Lily ignored her and even ignored the hand that made a half hearted attempt at grabbing her arm, a hand that belong to Petunia and a hand that suddenly, after months of longing, she just didn't want.

She fled into the house and locked herself in the first bathroom she could find.

A/N: I don't know what made me do it, but I split the summer into two chapters. (Actually, that's a lie. I have two scenes left with the second half of summer, but they're being...difficult. You know when you write a chapter in chunks and they're all over the place and then when you put them together, it's kind of awkward. That's what's going on with me now.)

This doesn't really have much going on and for that, I am sorry. However, I have more inspiration for fanfiction lately, so I'm sure I'll have the second half of the summer up soon. Thank you so much for reading!


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

_Second half of Summer, 1971_

_I'm going to be back late tonight._

That was the note Lily had scribbled to her that morning. And Blair, knowing the redhead as she did, had assumed that meant—_oh, we'll meet up tomorrow_. Perhaps in the woods after breakfast, or taking a short walk to the supermarket in the afternoon. Maybe they would spend time at one of their houses, probably Lily's. Blair would most likely end up eating dinner with the Evans, suffering the never ending questions of the parents and the constant glares of Petunia. But she wouldn't mind that so much now, not after a solid month of missing her best friend.

What she did not expect was a rock hitting her window at close to two o'clock in the morning. And definitely not Lily standing in her side yard, gesturing violently for Blair to come out and join her.

Her first instinct was that something was terribly wrong. It was very dark and she hadn't gotten a clear view of Lily's face, but she could read body language well enough and the other girl's was hardly positive at the moment. So, without really thinking too hard about it, she grabbed her wand along with a spare sweater before tugging on her shoes. She didn't think she'd need it—she highly doubted that Lily was in any trouble with wizards, French or British, and even if she were, she would have mentioned it—but, as she'd spent far too much time engrossed in the _Daily Prophet _that summer, she thought it best to err on the side of caution.

Her mother's door was shut tight when she crept out into the hallway and, when she reached the first floor Tobias was snoring fitfully on the couch in the sitting room. She opened the front door as quietly as she could, struggling to time its usual squeaks with her father's grunts, and slid slowly and carefully through it and out into the cool summer night.

Blair found that Lily hadn't moved at all when she hurried around to the side of the house. She seemed frozen, staring at the dirty siding some six feet up the wall, just below her bedroom window, but quiet obviously not seeing it. Blair cleared her throat as she approached, because she didn't think Lily was aware of any of her surroundings, herself included. The redhead started, blinked once and then turned big, tired green eyes on her.

Immediately, she knew she'd been right in thinking that something was wrong. Lily, happy, bright, _positive _Lily, was pale and drawn, with deep, dark circles under her eyes and a frown tugging the corners of her mouth. It was as if someone had snuffed out the lights behind that round, flushed face, leaving a miserable shadow in its wake and, as Blair gazed, morbidly transfixed, she realized abruptly that she'd seen that expression before—

Nearly every time she looked in the mirror.

In some detached corner of her mind, she realized that the shock of this profound change in her friend was the only think keeping her temper in check—because, after all, she would _never_ allow _anyone_ to hurt Lily, physically, emotionally, mentally, it didn't matter, she'd put a stop to it—and quickly released her wand and drew her hand away from it and out of the pocket of her sweater.

"Lily," her voice sounded oddly flat when she spoke—the emotional reaction hadn't registered yet, but it was only a matter of time before the anger crashed into her, "What—?"

"Have you had a good holiday so far?" Lily cut her off in a tremulous voice. Blair blinked and immediately, as if a dam had broken with these words, the anger began to boil up in the pit of her stomach.

"Lily," she tried again, and this time, her voice shook too, but with badly concealed rage as opposed to—well, whatever was happening with Lily, "Don't. I know something's wrong—"

"Don't be ridiculous," perhaps the redhead would have been more convincing if, almost as if Blair's reaction had triggered one of her own, tears hadn't begun sparkling very obviously in her eyes, "I had a lovely time in France. And you said you'd been working on potions with your mum, which ones have you—?"

This ridiculous attempt to deflect was more than Blair could handle.

"Shut up."

Lily stopped, stared and went, if possible, even paler than she'd been when she'd arrived, "Blair—"

"No," Blair snarled. She wondered vaguely if Lily could feel the energy building in the small space between them as she plowed on, "No. You do not get to show up at my house at two o'clock in the morning looking like this and then refuse to talk about it. I don't care about stupid potions or stupid France. Start. Talking."

Lily wavered. Her breathing was uneven, her fingers twitched at her sides, hidden badly by the long sleeves of her own old sweater, and her eyes darted all around the small side yard, from the grass to a pile of sticks Blair had collected from the front yard in an attempt to make the house more presentable to the window above her, still glowing with the lamp Blair hadn't switched off before she'd come running outside—

"How do you deal with it?" she whispered finally.

Blair didn't know what this meant. Of course she didn't and Lily obviously hadn't expected her too. There was a ringing silence during which the other girl rocked backwards and forwards on her heels and buried her hands into the pockets of her jeans, her eyes looking anywhere but at the brunette. And Blair's fury swelled again in the pause, because Lily needed to stop behaving like this—she needed to stop drooping and stop dodging and stop acting so much like Blair's own reflection, because she'd never seen anything so completely sickening before in her entire life.

Her fingers balled into fists, her nails bit into her palms harshly, the small amount of light they were afforded by the nearest street lamp was momentarily obscured by a tree branch and she opened her mouth to start shouting at the top of her voice—

And suddenly, Lily elaborated.

"How do you handle it when Tobias looks at you," her voice broke and she inhaled deeply before she finished, "like he hates you?"

For a moment, in a pause so complete the world had probably completely stopped for her, Blair relished the fact that she'd been brought back from the brink. She didn't know why she'd reacted so strongly and been so angry—all Lily had done was behave with some sadness and refuse to answer questions, which really should not have been such a trigger, but for some reason had pushed her into the type of fury she hadn't felt in months—years, even. She knew she'd seen herself momentarily in her friend and she knew that it had started there, but she wasn't keen on analyzing that any more than she wanted to take a deep, dark look at all the reasons her father had been staring fixedly at her mother's retreating back every time she'd disappeared down the basement stairs that summer.

She put on a good show, but she still wasn't the strongest girl in the world and there were some things she just didn't want to deal with. All she knew was that suddenly, she was much calmer than she'd been a moment before and really, she wasn't about to complain about that.

However, she'd been so close to snapping and, as she thanked Merlin that she hadn't been holding her wand in her fit of rage and that Lily had finally spoken when she did, she failed to completely understand the words the redhead had spoken. It was another moment before they sank in, their full meaning sliding into her consciousness and bringing her back to her ninth birthday and the most pain and anger she'd ever felt in her life.

The silence stretched as Blair's mind worked viciously, though with far more control than moments before, turning up memories of Tobias and the Evans family and ceramic lamps shattering on floors. Lily stared at her feet, her shoulders slumped and her hair slipping forward to hide her face.

Blair didn't have to guess as to why Lily had asked this question, just as she didn't have to wonder who had prompted her to ask it. She knew, of course she knew, and that was why Lily was quiet now. She didn't want to say it, because they both knew that if she did, Blair would stalk straight to the Evans' house, disregarding every rule that had ever been written about underage magic and secrecy, and hex that bloody Petunia straight into the next life—

But that wasn't what Lily needed. Violence, giving her sister another reason to hate all things magic—it wouldn't help matters. Blair exhaled deeply through her nose, willing her arms to stop quivering and her teeth to stop grinding. On her ninth birthday, Lily had been there. It had been awkward and uncomfortable and Blair had been very reluctant, but in the end, Lily had supported her better than anyone else could have. A moment of understanding between two little girls. They were older now, but the principle was the same.

It was time to return the favor and she was not about to disappoint her best friend with a poor showing.

"I don't," she said when she thought she could control her voice, and was relieved to find it relatively calm. Lily looked up, her brow furrowing, "I don't deal with it, because if he can't care about me, then he's not worth my time."

Those green eyes were swimming with tears again. Lily hiccupped slightly, "She's my sister."

Blair closed the space between them and wrapped her arms around her friend, burying her face in the mass of red hair and trying to ignore the strange, sinking feeling in her chest, "I know," she said softly, "I'm sorry."

* * *

_Remus,_

_Thank you for the lecture. I'm sorry I didn't write sooner. I was distracted. _

He paused here to snort. She was probably the only person he knew who would open a letter like that.

_As for my holiday, it's been very dull. There's not much to do here without Lily, so I've been spending most of my time stuck in the basement with my mother brewing Potions._

As this was the first letter he'd ever received from Blair, Remus took time to examine it. He'd seen her handwriting before, of course, short and fluid little letters that stretched across pages and pages of Potions essays. That was one thing, however, and this—this was a personal letter and, perhaps, if he looked closely, he'd see something of her opinion of him in the shape of her words and the length of her sentences. It wasn't that he was insecure in his relationship with her, not at all, but still.

He was curious.

_Don't get me wrong, I enjoy brewing with her, but there's only so much I can take. There aren't any windows down there and it gets so bloody hot and hazy, sometimes I'm surprised Mum hasn't suffocated, what with all the time she spends down there. It's far worse than the dungeons._

_Lily arrived home last night, so I think I'll probably be spending less time down there. But anyway, there's only so much I can do without a wand, just cutting up ingredients and things, but it's faster if she does it herself and sometimes she just doesn't have time to wait for me._

She formed her letters with precision, he decided. It wasn't a careless note, but one she had taken great pains over. The handwriting between each sentences changed, as if she'd paused, perhaps returning the quill to the table, maybe even walking away from it all together for a moment or two, wondering idly what to write next, refusing to plow ahead without thinking it over first.

_How has your holiday been? You spent so much time lecturing me in your letter, you apparently didn't have the space to mention it. How's your mum? Better, I hope. If she ever needs a specific sort of potion, don't hesitate to ask. My mum doesn't advertise to a wide base, but she's quite good._

Remus smiled slightly. He could just imagine the faint pride he would have heard in Blair's voice, had they been speaking face to face. He knew, though she'd never explicitly said it, how much respect she had for her mother.

But then, of course, he returned to the sentences before, the ones asking about his own mother's health. Not for the first time, his insides squirmed with guilt—of all the lies he'd ever told, that one had been by far the stupidest.

He imagined, morbidly, what she would have said if he _had _asked for a specific potion—"Yes, Blair, I need you and your mum to brew for me. I'm sure you could produce a potion to cure lycanthropy. No, not for my mother, for me. Sorry, slipped my mind, I'm a werewolf."

His stomach churned at the thought. He turned back to the letter.

_If I don't hear from you, I suppose I'll see you when school starts. _

_Blair_

Remus stared at her signature for a long moment, a small and simple little thing, before sinking his head into his hands. He'd been looking forward to her response, but now that he had it, he only felt sick.

What was it about her that, more than anyone, made him drown in his guilt?

* * *

It was very quiet the morning that she and Blair were due to travel to Diagon Alley.

Eileen had wandered downstairs just before dawn, when the red traces were just appearing on the edges of the sky over neighboring houses and the birds were just beginning to make a mild racket. She'd had half a mind for some tea, maybe a cigarette, on the back porch—she'd spent so much time in the basement that summer, her skin was practically translucent and, the way she saw it, some sun, even the sparse, early morning variety, was necessary before she went out in public. It probably wouldn't improve her appearance much, but it also wouldn't hurt to try.

Of course, they were out of tea bags when she peered into the chipped jar on the counter, but coffee was brewing and, grimacing slightly, she accelerated the muggle machine with a flick of her wand. No, no she wasn't waiting this morning—

"What're you doing to it?"

Eileen spun—Tobias had appeared in the kitchen doorway, his hair mussed, his eyes unfocused, his expression pinched—he eyed her wand apprehensively, but with nowhere near his usual disgust and fear. It was strange, but she noticed that, without the hatred, the lines of his face didn't seem so pronounced. He looked strangely younger in that moment, even if he was very clearly still half asleep.

She cleared her throat and looked back at the coffee maker just in time to see the last drops fall into the carafe. Then she sighed.

"Speeding it up," Eileen said more to herself than to him and turned to the cupboards, "Why are there never any clean mugs?"

She heard him move further into the room and, to her immense relief, found not one, but two mugs hidden behind a large mixing bowl in the last cabinet. When she turned back to the coffee maker, he'd pulled the carafe free and was staring at her impatiently.

It was a testament to the strangeness of the moment—and it was _strange_, subtly so—that he didn't question her further on the wand in her hand and the coffee he was pouring into the mug she'd handed him. Instead, he took an enormous gulp, frowned slightly and then wandered out onto the back porch.

Eileen stared after him, still clutching her own mug—empty—and the carafe—half full—he'd pushed silently into her hands.

* * *

Blair glared daggers at him when they met in the Leaky Cauldron. Her mother surveyed him critically through sunken eyes.

Evan wasn't really surprised. Of course his friend was still angry at him and of course her mother, who he'd always thought of as perhaps a bit over protective, was going to judge him too harshly. He blinked back at her as innocently as he could—he wondered vaguely if she'd decide that he wasn't fit to be within a mile of her daughter, though he couldn't think of any _real _reason why she would. He was sure, of all the Slytherins he'd ever met, he was one of the normal ones. Certainly more normal than Blair herself, though that wasn't really saying much.

Eventually, Blair clicked her tongue in annoyance and exchanged an irritated look with her mother.

"Can we go now?"

For a moment, he thought Eileen was going to say no. _No, Blair, I don't trust this boy with you._ But they continued to stare at each other and then Eileen nodded once.

"Go. Don't take too long."

Once they were out in Diagon Alley, the summer sun beating down on their backs and their noses each pressed against booklists, he waited for her to say it. To berate him as she had in her letter, to go on and on about how betrayed she felt that he'd never once mentioned his relationship to Bella and the rest of the Black clan. He'd been preparing for it and had a wide arsenal of patient, understanding and consoling apologies. But instead, just as they were passing the Apothecary and he grunted that he'd prefer to restock his potions supplies on their way back out, she took a different route, one he hadn't expected at all, but really should have, "Did you talk to her about me?"

Evan stopped, his booklist trailing into a box of newt eyes as his arms dropped to his sides, "What?"

Blair stopped too, but she was ahead of him and didn't turn to show him her face. She spoke in clipped, short sentences, so there could be no misunderstanding, "Bellatrix. She lost interest in me. I'm not stupid, Evan. What did you say to her?"

She sounded insulted, as if this betrayal was even more hideous than omitting members of his family during their long, fireside chats. But of course it was, in her book. Blair Snape was a firm believer in taking care of herself. She was too stubborn to accept help, even when she needed it. And even though they both knew she'd been afraid of Bellatrix, in her own, secret, furious way—Bellatrix and what she'd let people _think_ she was capable of.

He wasn't sure how much of his cousin's power was real, but he hadn't wanted to take any chances, especially when he'd noticed that, like Lucius, Bella had kept a special eye on Blair during the first months of their first year.

"Er—," Evan shifted his weight, uncomfortably aware of the stiff set to Blair's shoulders. This was exactly why he hadn't told her he'd spoken to Bella on her behalf—he'd had this nightmare scenario that, despite her fear, she'd antagonize his cousin just to prove she could take care of herself.

Somehow, he didn't think she'd come out on top in a duel with Bella—quite the contrary, actually.

"Evan," she said flatly. He exhaled and took a few steps forward to bump his shoulder against hers in what he hoped she'd interpret as a friendly gesture—there was no point in lying now, given that Bella was going off to get married and was leaving Hogwarts, and all the students she'd loomed over there, far, _far _behind.

"She asked me about you," he admitted, speaking quietly as they started to walk again, towards Flourish and Blotts, "When we started more spending time together. October, I think it was. She wanted to know where your loyalties were—are. She wanted to know if you were, you know, _acceptable_."

"Acceptable," Blair repeated as they passed a group of harassed looking wizards, all of whom were carrying cauldrons whose bottoms had apparently leaked through, "What—she screens your friends?"

Evan shrugged, "Only the ones she perceives as important."

"So you must be one of her favorite cousins then?"

He snorted, "I doubt it. She usually just ignores me. But she'd never let me go about embarrassing the family."

Blair was quiet as they entered Flourish and Blotts, frowning as they moved towards the back, where the new Hogwarts course books were usually kept on the shelves lining the far wall. "So what did you tell her?" she asked finally as he dragged two copies of _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Two _out from between the books and pushed one into her hand.

Evan paused. She was watching him very closely now, there was no getting out of it.

"I told her that you hated your father," he admitted finally.

Blair's expression flickered, but she controlled it too quickly for him to see what emotions had been there. "Fine," she said after a moment, "That's fine. I'm sure she loved it."

His entire body—he hadn't realized how tense he'd been as they'd entered the shop, anticipating her reply—relaxed. He leaned against the shelves beside them as she handed him their other new book, _A Beginner's Guide to Defensive Spellwork_, "It was enough. The whole half blood thing was the only reason she was so obsessed with you in the first place. She didn't think you were properly _ashamed _or something," she shot him an ugly look and he blanched, "Don't blame the messenger, we both know I don't care about your blood."

Blair started for the nearest service counter, "Yes, well. I just wish you would've told me."

"You made that abundantly clear with your scathing letter. Pity you couldn't make it a Howler, it was much less impressive without the shouting."

"Oh, believe me," she grumbled as she was checked out. She passed a couple of galleons over the counter and turned towards the door as she waited for him to do the same, "I wanted to. I had half a mind to ask Mum to do it for me."

"Well," Evan grinned, "at least you didn't write to Bella to tell her you're a blood traitor or something. Which is what I was concerned about, by the way, with your stubborn, _let me take care of myself_ attitude. You just don't know how to accept help."

Blair fixed him in a stony look, "There's a big difference between being stubborn and being stupid."

"Yeah, sure," he agreed lazily and was rewarded with a slap to the arm by her bag of books.

_September 1__st__, 1971_

"So, I suppose you'll be sitting with Rosier, then?"

Lily and Blair were standing a few feet from the barrier that hid Platform 9 ¾ from the muggle world, their trunks packed, Azure the owl shut firmly in her cage. They were each wrapped in jackets, as it was raining very steadily, though not quite hard, and Lily longed for her robes, which would have been far better suited to protect her already soaked jeans.

"Probably," Blair said evenly. She glanced once in the direction Eileen had gone off in, as it had been she who'd escorted them to King's Cross this year—Lily's parents were busy with Petunia, who had apparently insisted on purchasing a whole new wardrobe for the coming year, not that Lily was sure, as they still weren't speaking to each other—just in time to see her mother slip through a group of businessmen and vanish. A frown was playing at her mouth. "You'll find Marlene and Alice, right?"

She didn't sound resentful. Lily didn't feel that way either. They'd spent a great deal of time together that holiday, as Lily couldn't stand to be in her house with Petunia and something—she suspected Tobias—had pushed Blair out of her own home most days. The woods had given Lily her fill and she figured Blair must have felt the same, as there was nothing awkward about the way they discussed breaking off to find their other friends.

"There's Remus," she said and Blair looked around—Remus smiled mildly at them from between his parents as they bid him a goodbye. Blair's frown grew more pronounced and Lily thought she saw Remus' smile faltered for a fraction of a second as Mrs. Lupin put a hand on his shoulder—"His mum looks well."

"Yes," Blair agreed slowly, her black eyes still fixed on their friend as he hugged his father, "Quite well."

Lily wasn't sure, but something felt suspicious under that flat tone. Blair continued to stare at the Lupins, her eyes narrowed, her hair plastered firmly against her left cheek, standing out darkly against the pale skin. Lily blinked and opened her mouth to ask, but then someone behind them called her name and Blair took a step away, tugging her luggage carriage with her.

She turned and found Marlene waving at her from near the entrance to the station, just barely visible through the crowd.

"Go on," Blair muttered, "I'll find Evan, don't worry about it."

"Right," Lily smiled weakly at her, "I'll see you later then."

Blair appeared to have lost interest in whatever it was that had so captivated her about the Lupins. She nodded once and turned to the barrier, "Yeah, see you."

Lily distinctly saw Remus sigh as he watched Blair vanish onto the platform.

* * *

Right, okay, so. (I'm obsessed with author's notes, if you couldn't tell. I am filled with this desperate need to explain myself.)

1. I like to let readers imagine things—like that conversation between Evan and Bellatrix (also, it happened back when he was less important, at least in Blair's world). However, I am also considering a side story, possibly. Look for that, it may happen, it may not.

2. Tumblr. I am considering getting one, but I also fear I will become addicted and horrible and never leave my computer (which I don't anyway, with two active ffn accounts and everything else and afdhaofdjosafhdasoifhasi, but I don't want to make it worse). I tried Livejournal, but I just didn't get into it so much, but I need places to vent my feelings. So what I'm asking you guys is, if any of you have it—is it worth it?

3. At this point, my notes for this story become highly detailed and insistent, to the point where I call myself names in order to get things (plot lines, you know), so I think you can expect quick updates.

4. I haven't read through this as thoroughly as usual, please excuse any mistakes. (I wouldn't have posted it so soon, however, I'm starting classes again and work and I wasn't sure how much time I'd have in the coming week).

5. Thank you for reading!


	18. Chapter 18

It's funny—I've got pages and pages detailing scenes, but elaborating on them is so hard, you'd think I hadn't written any notes at all. This chapter was extremely difficult to write, but I hope it doesn't show.

And I changed my pen name, I was getting bored with all the "spice" stuff, so I named both my accounts after His Dark Materials.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

_September 1__st__, 1971_

Remus shut his eyes as his parents walked away from him, leaving him alone in the middle of King's Cross, standing beside his loaded luggage cart and struggling to keep his hands steady.

He couldn't erase the image. That black gaze. That suspicion.

It would be a miracle if she let him get away with it—with whatever she'd seen as she'd stared at his family. He wouldn't pretend to fathom the mind of Blair Snape, but he knew he'd been foolish to think he could hide from friends, least of all her.

_September, 1971_

Blair picked her way across the Common Room alone on the first Tuesday night of the term. Evan had gotten a detention from the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lynch—who had taken over for Professor Marwick, who had retired after only one year of teaching because she apparently hadn't realized that young children could be so energetic—for hexing James Potter in the corridor after dinner the previous evening. She had intended to shut herself up in the dormitory, perhaps chatting with Lily on the _Instant Note_, enclosing herself in her bed hangings and casting a silencing charm to avoid Alecto Carrow and Adaline Greengrass, who had a habit of gossiping nastily on their own beds, but was stopped halfway to the dormitory doors by a hand on her shoulder.

"Blair," said Lucius Malfoy lazily, immediately steering her away from the doors and to a pair of armchairs set away from the general hubbub of the Common Room, towards the furthest and darkest corner, a place the fire rarely reached, "We haven't talked in a while. Come, let's catch up."

Blair didn't put up much of a fight—it wasn't as if Malfoy had ever actually _threatened _her—certainly, he'd given her decent advice (_keep your head down, little girl_), though he had made it clear he wanted her to change her tune on the issue of blood status. And creating a scene would only draw attention to them, to herself, and it was better to have a quiet conversation with Lucius Malfoy than to fight with him under the eyes of every single person in the Common Room.

He pushed her into the left chair and settled himself in the right. Then, with far more flair than was really necessary, he pressed the tops of his fingers together and eyed her over them, that ever-present smirk playing at his mouth.

"Had a good holiday, then?"

She stared blankly at him.

It had been odd, their relationship since her arrival at Hogwarts. At first, he'd been oddly protective and, making good on promises he'd made to her when she had been very young, had seemed keen to take her under his wing. Then, after giving her a Christmas gift and going out of his way to greet her in corridors, he'd fallen silent during her second term—around the time, she realized now, that Bellatrix Black had turned her interests elsewhere.

Blair frowned irritably. What was it with these Slytherin boys and their bizarre desire to keep her safe?

At least _Remus _knew when to leave well enough alone.

"Lovely," she said flatly and his smirk grew tenfold.

"In a mood, are we?" Lucius leaned back and slid his hands along the leather of his chair, "Really, Blair, the only times I think I've ever seen you happy are the times I've watched you lurking about at the lake with that Gryffindor muggle born—what's her name? Evans? The point is—perhaps you shouldn't be so utterly foul to the members of your own house."

Blair tried to hide the flinch—he knew about her relationship with Lily…of course he _knew_, she should have realized that, he never seemed to be watching, but he always _was_—but the triumph in his eyes told her she'd failed miserably.

"What do you want?" she asked neutrally after a moment, "Is this another warning? I'll do what I please, thank you."

Lucius almost snorted—_almost_, because, Blair thought with no small amount of disgust, a Malfoy would never _snort_, "No, no, I realized that, which was why I so kindly steered Bellatrix's eyes away from you."

Blair laughed coldly, thinking for a moment that she had the upper hand, "Please. I've Evan to thank for _that_."

Those gray eyes flashed—for a moment, the smirk faltered, but then Lucius hitched it firmly back into place and leaned forward slightly, "Certainly, your friend played some part. But Bellatrix doesn't place much stock in what little boys tell her about little girls. Especially when the little boy is so _obviously fond_ of the little girl. Don't be stupid, Blair, it doesn't suit you."

Two extremely embarrassing things happened in response to this. The first, Blair felt her face heat up more than it had in years—it was undoubtedly a very obvious blush and it had to happen at the _worst _possible time. She wasn't sure if it was a reaction to Lucius' suddenly unbearable proximity or to what he'd said about Evan, but she knew she couldn't bear to see the vicious glee in that stupid, pointy, albeit handsome face, and so, without thinking about how pathetic it would make her look, she turned her face away entirely and stared out at the Common Room.

It was quiet for a moment. She was sure Lucius was waiting for a reply and she couldn't bear to see his smug expression as he did so. And, she noticed as her eyes darted everywhere but in his direction, Narcissa Black was glaring daggers at their corner. Blair met her gaze for a fraction of a second, then, feeling worse than before, tilted her chin back and studied the ceiling.

"Why do you even care?" she said aggressively, settling on the one thing she'd been wondering for close to a year and a half now—after all, she was just a little second year and he really should not have been paying any attention to her at all and the way she saw it, she'd already embarrassed herself fully and there was no way it could possibly get any worse. She briefly entertained the idea of looking him in the eye to see his reaction, but decided the grubby ceiling and its cobweb shroud were far more interesting.

There was another lengthy pause. Blair longed to look at him, as surely his mask would be down if he had to think so long, but was quite sure she would not be able to control her own face if she did.

"It's not as easy as it seems," Lucius murmured finally. Blair's chin snapped forward so fast she nearly bruised her collarbone, but his expression was painfully blank, she'd missed her chance, "Being me."

"So…" Blair felt very much like a child in that moment. This was not some lazy complaint from a poor little rich boy who felt a little alone in the world. His eyes said that much, not that she could read much passed the wall he'd thrown up, leaving them so blank, she thought he might have turned to stone. But she simply could not understand what he was trying to tell her, only that it was _something _and that it was very important. Irritation began to rise in her stomach and when she finally opened her mouth, petulance came out: "So. What? You're lonely?" she snorted even as she spoke the words, "Spare me. You're Lucius sodding Malfoy, you're surrounded by admirers, friends—"

"Not friends."

She opened her mouth again, but of course nothing came out and all she could do was gawk at him, meeting his eyes this time. Of all the things she'd expected, _this _was definitely not it. And still, he didn't sound like a spoiled rich boy—but like something else. Something…worried, maybe? Or perhaps a little bitter?

"You—," her voice was very strained when it finally started to work again and she definitely sounded like a confused child now, but was far beyond caring. This was _Lucius Malfoy_ and she had a feeling he hadn't been this exposed in a very long time, "You've got no friends?"

He didn't reply. He continued to stare.

"And—," her tone turned slightly belligerent now and she plowed forward without really thinking about what she was saying, "what, you want _me _to be your friend? You think _I'm _a good choice, out of all your little hangers on? Nott and Mulciber and—"

Lucius gazed at her, sitting very still, his back very straight. "I didn't say that," he breathed.

Blair's temper snapped. "Then _what?_ Don't toy with me, Malfoy, I don't care if you think I'm just some stupid kid, I—"

"What I mean to say is," though he spoke very quietly, he silenced her effectively, "you _could _be."

Blair, who had jerked forward in her moment of rage, sank back into her armchair and blinked rapidly, "I don't understand," she admitted furiously, "what the _hell _you're talking about."

"No," Lucius' attention slipped sideways. Blair, following his gaze, once again found Narcissa Black, though she was now talking adamantly to one of her friends, a pinched, frustrated expression marring her pretty face, "No," he repeated, "You're very young. Sometimes I forget."

For a long moment, they both stared at Narcissa, who was so absorbed in her own conversation, she didn't notice.

"You wear your emotions on your sleeve," said Lucius suddenly.

Blair scowled, "No. I get angry sometimes, but I—"

"You are very expressive," he continued, once again as if she hadn't spoken at all, "It's what I like about you. But it must change, Blair," he finally looked back at her, his gray eyes colder than she'd ever seen them. She tried to lean back further without him noticing, "Everything else is. I'm sure you've seen it."

Blair swallowed hard. She had no response. What could she say? The young feeling returned in full force—what did he expect from her? Part of her wondered if she should even try, but she knew she had to speak, he was waiting, she had to say something, she couldn't embarrass herself again—

But then suddenly, Lucius stood up and smiled at her in that same lazy way he had when he'd first dragged her over to this bloody corner to start this bloody conversation. "This was a very nice chat," he said with flourish, "Have a good evening, Blair."

And then, to her absolute disgust and fury and confusion, he left her sitting there, staring and quite unable to think.

* * *

Their first Potions lesson of the term inspired several feelings in Lily, though happiness was not one of them.

The first was extreme irritation.

"Welcome back!" Slughorn cried the moment they entered the dungeon, hovering uncertainly, as there was no sign as to where they were meant to sit and they were unsure whether they would be paired up again, "Well, take your usual seats!"

Lily nearly groaned aloud, but chose the nearest seat to the door and sank into it. Alecto Carrow looked as if she'd swallowed something particularly slimy.

Then, of course, Blair and Remus slid into the seats behind her, muttering civil greetings to one another and, she saw when she chanced a glance backwards, smiling, however weakly, as they unpacked their cauldron and ingredients. Alecto stomped over to join Lily then, shooting her a look that suggested she'd be hexed for saying even _hello_ and flinging her bag onto the table, nearly knocking Lily's off the edge.

Then, after several minutes of copying notes on Swelling Solutions, Lily experienced a great deal of impatience.

As they were partners and thus literally _forced _to work together for the sakes of their grades, she had to wait as Alecto took a deliberately long time to prepare the ingredients. She watched with growing irritation as the other girl skinned, chopped and mashed with exaggerated slowness and smirked all the while.

Behind them, Remus and Blair were well into the brewing phase and he was telling her a story about a mutated chipmunk he'd found eating some of his father's recycled potions in his backyard over the summer in a low voice.

Finally, Alecto tipped the first set of ingredients into their boiling water, turning to the second pile of roots and animal parts and lifting her knife almost lazily.

Blair snorted at something Remus had said, albeit quietly. Lily was sure she was the only one, other than Remus, who'd heard.

"We need to add the next ingredients in seven minutes," she warned Alecto testily. Her partner spared her a careless glance.

"Relax, mudblood," she said, "I'll have them ready."

Lily didn't know what this meant, though something in Alecto's voice told her it was not a compliment. She didn't notice either that the conversation behind them had cut off suddenly, though she was vaguely aware of what she thought was a lull in the talking. She turned back to her potion, frowning deeply and stirring its contents for a moment, when she heard Remus hiss, "_Don't._"

She glanced backwards.

The look on Blair's face—she was staring at the back of Alecto's head, her lip curling, her eyes flashing, her cheeks losing what little color they usually had—was one of the ugliest Lily had ever seen. Perhaps it was only rivaled to the expression she'd seen over the summer, while confessing Petunia's foul behavior, the hatred, the disgust, the very obvious lack of control—she'd been so miserable herself that she hadn't taken the time to examine it then, but found she couldn't look away from the violence now—Remus was clearly holding Blair by the wrists, twisted very obviously towards her in his stool, keeping her hands down in her lap and out of sight. But Lily did not have to wonder—her friend had clearly gone for her wand—

Remus caught her eye and shook his head, leaning closer to Blair and whispering frantically, "Blair, not here, not here—we're in a classroom, Slughorn!"

"Foul," Blair snarled under her breath, ignoring him, "Can't call people—that word—it's not right—"

"I know," Remus breathed, his words disturbing her hair. Lily stared. "I know. But not here. Calm down."

Blair opened her mouth to reply and Lily could tell, just by the way her jaw set and her struggling became more pronounced, that she was going to start shouting—then their eyes met for a fraction of a second and Lily, even as Remus pushed Blair's hands further into her lap, shook her head as much as she dared as she sat beside Alecto.

Obviously mudblood _had_ been an insult, and a bad one. Blair's vicious expression faltered for a second. Around them, class continued—Lily didn't understand how, but apparently nobody had noticed what had just happened—and she watched her best friend relax in Remus' grip.

"Here," said Alecto, as oblivious as anyone to what had just happened behind her, and tipped the new ingredient into their cauldron, "Satisfied?"

Lily held Blair's stare for one more second before turning to her partner, "Yeah," she muttered and stirred the potion absently.

* * *

Remus saw Alecto Carrow in the library later with Adaline Greengrass looking suitably un-hexed, but he figured it was only a matter of time before Blair retaliated. He briefly considered hurrying back to the Common Room and borrowing the _Instant Note_, perhaps to get a feel for what kind of punishment Blair had in store for Carrow, but then decided against it—she wasn't stupid. She wouldn't do anything to get herself expelled.

Besides, it wasn't as if he thought her_ entirely _out of line.

So instead of rushing off to find Lily or Blair herself, he wandered in the general direction of the Owlery, reaching into his bag to check if he had any spare parchment—perhaps he would write to his mother—

A crack sounded to his right, startlingly loud in the quiet of the corridor and yet muffled by a door set deep into the stone wall—a boy's bathroom. It was followed immediately by shouting, one of the voices vaguely familiar as it echoed through the walls.

Without really thinking about it, Remus immediately swerved to enter the bathroom—there was something like a tunnel leading to the main room, littered with bits of toilet paper and wet with what he hoped was merely condensation—though why, as they were three floors up and nowhere near the lake…

He burst into the larger room to find James and Evan Rosier with their wands trained on each other's faces and their breath coming in violent bursts. Both turned to look at him, James blinked and Remus returned the gesture, but Rosier reacted in seconds, swinging his wand around, his mouth moving—

Remus ducked as a jet of purple light flew in his direction. He heard James yelling, "Oi!" and then there was another sharp crack and both of them began to shout hexes faster than they could cast them.

"_Ablattero! Despius! _Libaugeo! Appicus! _Gelesco! Singulto! _"

Remus shielded his eyes against the burst of magic that managed to escape the wands, reaching for his own and—

One of James' spells found its mark. Rosier staggered backwards, his hand flying to his upper arm, where the magic had struck him—

The Slytherin opened his mouth, his expression livid, only to let loose a loud, spectacular hiccup, a hiccup that shook his entire body and could only be described as the most painful sound Remus had ever heard.

There was a very awkward pause.

"P—_hic—_Potter, you _hic_—I'll_ hic_—," Furious and apparently unable to finish the sentence without extreme discomfort, Rosier swung his wand back towards James—

"_Expelliarmus!_"

The wand flew from Rosier's hand and landed in a sink. All three of them stared after it before Rosier rounded furiously on Remus, "Lupin, _hic _you prat!" he snarled, or attempted to snarl, "I'm _hic _in pain, _hic _I think I have _hic _a right to—!"

But then he trailed off, his eyes on the entrance to the tunnel Remus had come through moments before. He and James turned to look and both immediately dropped their wand arms to their sides.

A tall boy, Remus recognized him from evenings in the Common Room and thought he might be a fifth year and a prefect, though at the moment he couldn't remember his name, had just entered the bathroom and was looking at the scene with something like mild amusement.

"_Hic—Prewett_," Rosier started in on him without a moment's hesitation, "Potter _hic _jinxed me, you're a prefect _hic_, you've got to _hic_—"

"Seems you've jinxed him too," Gideon Prewett—one of the twins, Remus realized—said lightly, gesturing at James. Remus only then noticed that he had not spoken since he'd disarmed Rosier and saw that his lips had swollen to the size of bananas. Smirking, Prewett took out his wand—he flicked it in James' general direction, muttering what was obviously the counter jinx, and the lips immediately began to deflate. Then he turned Rosier, waving and muttering, and the other boy's continuous stream of hiccups cut off abruptly. "Right, then," he continued, "Rosier's right, I am a prefect, so I _could_ put you in detention—," both Rosier and James opened their mouths in horror, but Prewett ignored them, "but I'm sure this was just a misunderstanding, so I'm going to let it slide _just this once_," for a moment, his mild expression flickered to one more serious, "Understand?"

Rosier nodded. James mumbled something that sounded like, "Yeah, whatever."

"Lupin," Prewett turned to him then and he started, "why don't you and Potter leave first, just so they won't be tempted?"

Blinking at this random knowledge of his name and assuming it could only be related to the sprawling and impressive reputations James and Sirius had managed to build for themselves, he nodded and glanced at James. His friend shot one last look of loathing at Rosier before following him out of the bathroom.

When they were a corridor away, Remus decided it was safe to ask, "What happened?"

"He's a prat," James replied stiffly, his expression very sour indeed, "Walking around, acting like he's so _talented_—"

Remus bit his lip—Rosier was a lot of things, foul to Gryffindors being one of them, but he'd never known the boy to be arrogant. Though, admittedly, James _was_ his potions partner…it was just that he'd always assumed, merely based on the fact that Rosier was Blair's friend…

"So…" he said cautiously, "That's it?"

"Yeah," James snapped, "Why?"

Remus blinked rapidly—for some reason, the idea of voicing his opinion (that is, that attacking a person just because of dislike and without provocation wasn't exactly okay) made him extremely uncomfortable. The words stuck in his throat.

"No reason," he muttered finally.

* * *

Later, wrapped in blankets and staring at the ceiling, Remus felt something like shame. After all, James was his friend and surely he would respect Remus' differing opinions. One little disagreement wouldn't ruin their friendship.

But then, there was that little voice in the back of his head, the paranoid one that made him wonder what Blair thought of his family and made him sneak out of the Common Room with increasing stealth each month—

_Don't give him any reason to doubt his friendship with you. Because if he finds out, it'll just make it easier for him to walk away—_

He rolled over, feeling disgusted with himself.

_October, 1971_

_Mum,_

_How are you? How is Tobias? He spent more time around the house this summer—is he still?_

_Everything's fairly quiet around here—I haven't had much access to the Prophet, so I haven't been able to keep up with everything that's been going on. Evan and I borrow copies we find around the Common Room, but it doesn't happen often and there's rarely any important news. Does this mean that things have quieted down? Do we miss the big articles? Or do you think they're just not reporting any of it? That's Evan's opinion, anyway._

_I miss you. I plan to see you in December, unless something comes up?_

_Love,_

_Blair_

* * *

The pair of them entered the boy's dormitory at close to ten in the evening on a Tuesday. Blair was very tired, Evan could tell, but he didn't comment. She seemed moodier than usual, she'd been avoiding her own dormitory and, he'd noticed, she hadn't once looked at Alecto Carrow since the girl had tripped spectacularly while leaving the Great Hall three days before and come up with a hideously bloody lip. He hadn't asked about that either, but something told him it hadn't been the accident it had appeared to be and that Blair, as irritable as she was, was feeling guilty about it.

Avery was the only other one in the room, but that seemed to be the norm whenever he took Blair to his bed—

To his dormitory lately. Not to his bed.

They were twelve.

He was something of an oddity, Edward Avery, when it came to socializing—to friends. Macnair, Carrow and Dolohov were particular friends and, while Avery often joined them when they lingered around the fire in the Common Room and wandered down by the lake, he also had a tendency to break off and spend hours upon hours in isolation—the library, the dormitory, Evan had even found him shoved into an alcove behind a suit of armor more than once. And on every single one of these occasions, Avery had his nose buried in large, almost ancient looking texts the titles of which Evan did not know the languages of, let alone understand.

Every time they stumbled upon him, Evan always waited for Avery to glance at them, greet them, perhaps aim a snide remark at one or both of them. But as usual, the other boy ignored them as they crossed the room to Evan's four poster, absorbed in his newest antique tome, his dark eyes flying across the page, propped up against his pillows, his legs crossed at the ankles.

Evan and Blair slid onto his bed and opened their bags—he had a Charms essay to finish, she was nose first in a Potions book Slughorn had lent her. They fell into their work without comment, sitting side by side on his pillows and leaning against his headboard.

For close to an hour, there was silence. Then—

"That was a nice little trip Alecto had the other day, wasn't it?"

Perhaps because it was so unusual for Avery to speak during the hours the three of them spent cooped up in the dormitory or maybe because none of them had so much as twitched a page for at least fifteen minutes, but Blair jumped nearly a foot in the air and reached wildly for her wand at his words. Evan closed his eyes and put a hand to his chest. He had managed to stay in one place, but he was still having heart palpitations. Avery snorted.

"On edge, are we?"

Blair shot him one of the ugliest looks Evan had ever seen.

"_Piss off_ you little rodent."

Under normal circumstances, had it been anyone else, Evan would have laughed—the word _rodent_ described Avery better than any other, with his beady little eyes and his short arms and legs. But as it had been Avery that Blair was insulting, this was perhaps going a bit far, because though he didn't know the titles of the books his dorm mate read with such devotion, he had his suspicions about what they held. Dark magic, most likely, and of the violent sort. But before Evan had time to tense or even anticipate retaliation for this comment, _Avery_ began laughing, and far harder than the insult required.

Blair exchanged an uncomfortable glance with him as the boy on the other bed dissolved into mirth so complete, tears began to roll down his face in droves.

"_Rodent_," Avery gasped, clutching his throat, "_Rodent."_

"I don't see what's so funny about the word rodent," Evan muttered, more to Blair than to Avery, but the latter's laughter reduced all the same.

"It's not funny. I just always thought Blair would be capable of better," he shot one of his best smirks in her direction and she bristled. "Though, after that little performance in the Great Hall, I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

Blair scowled deeply at him, "What're you on about now?"

But, of course, she knew. Evan knew too. It was clear Avery was accusing her of attacking Alecto, and besides, she wasn't doing a very good job of hiding her feelings—her knuckles were white where she gripped the blankets, after all. He leaned around her to get a better look at Avery's expression, but the other boy was still grinning wickedly at Blair, his eyes shining with a bizarre short of superiority.

"All I'm saying is," he breathed, his voice so quiet it barely carried across the space between the beds, "I would have done it to her face—"

"Shove it," Blair snarled, lurching forward suddenly to block Evan's view of Avery completely, "If I'd wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it, you—"

"Right," Avery cooed, "It's good to know you're a bit of a coward, Blair—"

Evan had been in the process of shoving his books aside to get a better perspective on the situation, but then, at this, Blair moved again, uncovering his line of sight. He would've been pleased, had she not pulled her wand on Avery and pointed it directly at the cover of his book, which rested across his chest and over his heart.

For once, the smirk had vanished off of Avery's smug face.

"Right," Blair hissed, sounding quite out of control. That was the thing about her—one second she was quiet and passive, the next, her wand was out and she was making venomous, violent threats. It was absolutely no good, especially not in Slytherin House—"Right, because I tripped her up a bit and didn't use Dark Magic, is that it, _Edward?_ Perhaps I should've cursed her—maybe forced her blood out through her ears or something? Do you honestly think nobody knows what's in those bloody books you're reading all the time?"

Avery's expression was now so blank, Evan was surprised Blair could stand to look at it. It was a very uncomfortable, his own eyes couldn't stay fixed on it for long. But his friend held her ground so firmly, he couldn't help but be proud, even as he stared at Avery's hands, waiting for them to twitch towards his wand.

"Of course I know that _you _know what's in my books," Avery murmured, "You stare at them often enough. _Envious_."

"_Suspicious_," Blair spat.

And that smirk returned full force.

Evan braced himself, because surely she would curse him for even suggesting—but then Blair spun so quickly, her braid lashed out and caught him on the cheek. He winced as she shoved Slughorn's book back into her bag and dragged it from his bed.

"I'll see you later, Evan," she snarled at him, and promptly stormed out of the dormitory.

* * *

Lily snuck up to the Owlery to do it. She was afraid she'd chicken out if she didn't post it immediately.

It took ages to start—she pulled out the parchment and sank against the rough stone wall opposite the door, squinting through the darkness of the tower and listening to the low hooting that rose up all around her. Feathers rustled from somewhere over her head and several owls clacked their beaks. She could feel hundreds of large, round eyes watching her struggle for the words—

_Dear Petunia,_

She stared at the greeting for a long moment. Even her handwriting looked uncertain.

_Dear __Petunia,__ Tuney,_

Was that too intimate? They'd been that way once, years ago, but now they were strangers in every sense of the word. Petunia didn't know her anymore. Petunia didn't seem to _want_ to know her either.

_I had some spare time, so I thought I'd write to you._

Was that too casual? How long had it been since they'd had a civil conversation?

…none sprung immediately to mind. That spoke volumes.

_I don't know what to say to you anymore._

She paused, quill suspended inches from the parchment, staring at the last sentence.

_I meant what I said at the cousins. You hate me because you couldn't come too. And I really am sorry about that._

She should stop, probably. Think it through. But words were flowing now, so why bother? She'd talk herself out of it if she stopped anyway.

_I miss you. You're still my sister, even if you do think I'm a freak. But I'm not, because there are hundreds and hundreds of other students here, just like me, so I'm really not that unique. _

_I want to try, Tuney. I don't want you to hate me and I'm scared that I might start hating you. I'm not saying that we have to spend loads of time together or that you have to watch me do magic all the time or anything. Maybe letters, sometimes? Just to talk?_

_I'm not Blair, you know. I don't blame you for being angry at me._

Lily drew the quill back from the parchment so quickly, ink splattered her cheek. Her heart was suddenly beating very quickly. Part of her wanted to tear the letter to shreds—how could she have written such a thing?

But then—

_I hope to hear from you soon,_

She hadn't written anything that wasn't the truth, after all.

_Love,_

_Lily_

_November, 1971_

"I saw you talking to Malfoy in the library the other day."

Blair wasn't sure, but she thought that Lily's too casual tone might be hiding an accusation.

"Yeah," she turned around—she'd been in the lead—and frowned, "And?"

She also wasn't sure why she felt so defensive, out of nowhere, though she figured it was probably because the comment had been completely unexpected—the three of them (her, Lily and Remus) had been talking about Dumbledore's recent absence from the staff table, after all, and how that had anything to do with Lucius Malfoy—

"I thought you hated him," Lily said flatly—not a question. Just a statement. Remus glanced between them, his expression inscrutable.

Blair wasn't quite sure what to say to this. She _had_ harbored a great deal of dislike for Malfoy in the beginning and she'd made no secret of it, but now…

It wasn't that the conversation they'd had—the one about friends and whatever other weird subtext had been there—hadn't changed things, exactly. It was that he'd exposed himself and she'd seen something under that stupid, arrogant mask he wore around the school—not something attractive, mind you, or anything that made her want to be his _friend_ or something equally ridiculous. Just something else. Something she didn't hate. Not exactly.

But how could she explain that to Lily, who feared Malfoy almost as much as she didn't trust him? Or to Remus, who was now eyeing her with something like understanding?

Blair turned her frown away from the pair of them, spinning back towards the lake and stalking away from the branches of the Forbidden Forest, under which they had been wandering for the last half hour. It was a Saturday, but it was also quite chilly, so only a few students, most of them older, were walking the grounds as they were. As she surveyed the lake, glittering the weak November sunshine, Blair adjusted her scarf to avoid the necessity of responding to Lily's words.

"He ignored you for most of last year," said Remus quietly after a moment. Blair turned right back around to stare at him. Lily was blinking rapidly at his side.

"Yeah, but—," the redhead began, but Remus continued to speak.

"I think it's Blair's choice who she talks to in the library."

It was Blair's turn to blink, as she'd had a retort ready and waiting on the tip of her tongue for whatever Lily had been about to say, but Remus had more or less voiced it for her. The other girl flushed scarlet.

"I wasn't trying to say—what I meant was—_you _were the one who said he was dangerous! That first time on the train, remember? And," she rounded on Blair, frowning deeply, "_You _said that I should stay away from the older Slytherins because they were mad and dangerous and hate muggles and muggle borns! And your mother's _married _to a muggle and you're spending time with Malfoy like it's—"

"Spending time with Malfoy?" Blair spat, her temper rising to the surface—it had been doing that a lot lately, ever since she'd heard Carrow call Lily a mudblood, though it had aimed itself mostly at Avery—she supposed it was only a matter of time before her anger started to take itself out on people other than that foul little _rat_—"I'm not _spending time with Malfoy_. I've talked to him maybe three times this year! What—I can't have a conversation with members of my own house?"

Lily's eyes flashed dangerously, "I'm just going off what _you_ said!"

"It's not as black and white as that!"

"You sure made it sound that way last year!"

Remus stepped between them. "Stop it," he said flatly, so close to Blair that his breath warmed the tip of her nose.

It was only then that she realized she and Lily had been stepping closer and closer to each other, their fists shaking at their sides, their voices rising as the argument escalated. She blinked, and so did Lily, and they both took a step back—she wasn't sure about her friend, but Blair suddenly felt very ashamed and more than a little childish. Remus smiled slightly and stepped sideways, so they stood in a sort of triangle, and placed his hands on both their shoulders.

"This summer, my father didn't tell me much about what's happening outside of Hogwarts," he told them, "Almost nothing, actually. He probably thinks I'm too young—we probably are. But he did say that—," he paused, as if looking for the words, "He said we needed to stay together, you know? That we need to stop fighting with each other here and start—"

Remus stopped. Lily was staring at him, looking slightly pale, her expression one of nervous anticipation. Blair swallowed hard.

"And start fighting them out there?" she finished for him quietly.

Lily frowned, "We're _twelve._"

Blair knew she would sound a bit arrogant, but she said it anyway.

"So?"

Remus shook his head and tightened his fingers on her shoulder, "All I'm saying is—we're friends. We need to remember that. And one conversation," he glanced meaningfully at Lily, "doesn't mean anything."

There was a silence. Blair knew, just by looking at her face, that Lily still felt just as stupid as she did about what had just happened. Perhaps it was because of this that she didn't let her friend speak when she opened her mouth, looking apologetic—"No, forget it."—though perhaps, though she squashed the thought as she shrugged Remus' hand off her shoulder and turned back toward the lake shore, it had been because, for the first time in a long time, she hadn't been able to predict what Lily was going to say and for a moment, it had scared her more than she cared to admit.

* * *

_Dear Blair,_

_Things are very quiet here. I saw Mrs. Evans at the market the other day, she said that Lily is doing well. That is very good to hear. Your father has been working more._

_As for the Prophet, they aren't reporting many attacks, so I honestly don't know what's happening. I do know that Diagon Alley has been very nervous lately and my customers have been placing orders for more and more antidotes. Based on what I can see, I'd say things are getting worse. Please be careful._

_I will see you in December. I love and miss you more than I think you know._

_Always yours,_

_Mum_

* * *

Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
